“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.”

“What can you do with a person who says that he is absolutely uncertain about everything, and that he is absolutely certain about that?”

“Nothing - really, absolutely nothing - says more about Victorian Britain and its capacity for brilliance than that the century's most daring and iconic building was entrusted to a gardener.”

“Want a sugar cube? [...] They're supposed to be for the horses, but who cares? They've got years to eat sugar, whereas you and I . . . well, if we see something sweet we better grab it quick. [...] You're absolutely terrifying me in that get-up. What happened to the pretty little-girl dresses?”

“You have no choice about your capacity to feel that something is good for you or evil, but what you will consider good or evil, what will give you joy or pain, what you will love or hate, desire or fear, depends on your standard of value.”

“It terrified me to consider: What if, as a grown-up, I craved another body beside me as still as this one? What then?”