“let's say you and a small child go to a magic show, where things are made to float in the air. Which of you would have the most fun?""I probably would.""And why would that be?""Because I would know how impossible it all is.""So... for the child it's no fun to see the laws of nature being defied before it has learned what they are.""I guess that's right.""And we are still at the crux of Hume's philosophy of experience. He would have added that the child has not yet become a slave of the expectations of habit; he is thus the more open-minded of you two. I wonder if the child is not also the greater philosopher? He comes utterly without preconceived opinions. And that, my dear Sophie, is the philosopher's most distinguishing virtue. The child perceives the world as it is, without putting more into things than he experiences”

“He wondered if his own child would like tohave a dog, then shook off the thought. He was yearsaway from having a child. He needed a wife first—andobtaining her would be far more trouble than obtaininga mistress. Here, he had yet to get a mistress.”

“. . . I would have let him go one finger at a time, until, without his realizing, he'd be floating without me. And then I thought, perhaps that is what it means to be a [parent] - to teach your child to live without you.”

“So now you must choose... Are you a child who has not yet become world-weary? Or are you a philosopher who will vow never to become so? To children, the world and everything in it is new, something that gives rise to astonishment. It is not like that for adults. Most adults accept the world as a matter of course. This is precisely where philosophers are a notable exception. A philosopher never gets quite used to the world. To him or her, the world continues to seem a bit unreasonable - bewildering, even enigmatic. Philosophers and small children thus have an important faculty in common. The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder…”

“So – I am n-nothing more than – than a bloody job?! On top of not knowing why you must look after me – you only jumped at the chance to help me because your – that V-Vampire thought you couldn’t?! What are you, some – some child?!”“I am no child, human!”“Oh I would not have thought so,” she breathed condescendingly sending his blood to boil despite the ring, “if it were not for the fact that only children react so wondrously juvenile when faced with such a choice! You bargain my life over a show of bravado! And where is your brother, Christian?! He has not been here to see your brilliant work as my watcher, has he?!”

“When things are taking their ordinary course, it is hard to remember what matters. There are so many things you would never think to tell anyone. And I believe they may be the things that mean most to you, and that even your own child would have to know in order to know you well at all.”