“If you cannot recognize the problem, there is no way that I could explain it to you."He laughed, damn the man. "My goodness," he said, "that was an expert sidestep.”

“I would be pleased to participate in this conversation to a greater degree," he drawled, "except that you have not seen fit to share with me any of the details of your life.""It was not an oversight on my part."He clucked disapprovingly. "So hostile."Her eyes bugged out. "You abducted me-"Coerced," he reminded her."Do you want me to hit you?""I wouldn't mind it," he said mildly. "And besides, now that you're here, was it really so very terrible that I browbeat you into coming? You like my family, don't you?""Yes,but-""And they treat you fairly, right?""Yes,but-""Then what," he asked, his tone most supercilious, "is the problem?"Sophie almost lost her temper. She almost jumped to her feet and grabbed his shoulders and shook and shook and shook, but at the last moment she realized that that was exactly what he wanted her to do.And so instead she merely sniffed and said, "If you cannot recognize the problem, there is no way that I could explain it to you."He laughed,damn the man. "My goodness," he said, "that was an expert sidestep."She picked up her book and opened it. "I'm reading.""Trying,at least," he murmured.She flipped a page, even though she hadn't read that last two paragraphs. She was really just trying to make a show of ignoring him, and besides, she could always go back and read them later, after he left."Your book is upside down," he pointed out. Sophie gasped and looked down. "It is not!"He smiled slyly. "But you still had to look to be sure, didn't you?"She stood up and announced, "I'm going inside."He stood immediately. "And leave the splendid spring air?""And leave you," she retorted, even though his gesture of respect was not lost on her. Gentleman did not ordinarily stand for mere servants."Pity," he murmured. "I was having such fun."Sophie wondered how much injury he'd sustain if she threw the book at him. Probably not enough to make up for the loss to her dignity.”

“It’s that I think Will is angry with me,” Tessa explained. “So whatever he told you—”He laughed. “Will is angry with everyone,” he said. “I don’t let it color my judgment.”

“Tell me. You're a man who understands history," I said. "If you want to start a revolution, why not issue a manifesto? Why not show the people who you are, what you're doing?"He leaned back, grateful to explain. "That's perfectly understandable. Socrates wrote nothing down. Neither did Jesus. The problem with text is that it assumes it's own reality. It cannot answer, and it cannot explain.”

“The first expert said he had attention deficit disorder. The second expert said the first was out of order. One said he was autistic, another that he was artistic. One said he had Tourette's syndrome. One said he had Asperger's syndrome. And one said the problem was that his parents had Munchausen syndrome. Still another said all he needed was a good old-fashioned spanking.”

“I remember the tale of the rabbi to whom a dead man came with a problem: he believed that he was alive. "Don't you know," the rabbi told him, "that you are no longer among the living? You are in the Land of Confusion." On hearing the story, the rabbi's son worried that he too was in the Land of Confusion. "Once you know that there exists such a world, you cannot be in it," explained the father. (208)”