“The library is the worst group of people ever assembled in history. They're mean, conniving, rude, and extremely well-read, which makes them dangerous.”

“We need to remember what's important in life: friends, waffles, work. Or waffles, friends, work. Doesn't matter, but work is third.”

“One of the pleasant things about you is that you're entirely predictable because you never learn. I've told you before, and I'm telling you again, that people who murder other people are dangerous to be around. You're charming, my dear, and sometimes you act like an awful fool. Someday it'll be you that doesn't wake up at the foot of some stone steps. Those are terms a first-grader ought to be able to understand--won't you see what you can make of them?”

“Sound the tocsin of national peril and hordes of well-meaning folk with nothing much to do always materialize from nowhere. They itch to meddle in great matters of which their comprehension is usually pretty dim, and have no objection to getting their names and pictures in the papers.”

“History is simply the stories we inherit.”

“Surrendering is unimaginably more dangerous than struggling for survival.”

“Lilac makes on occasion a sound between a sniff and a snort that's as damning as all improper words in the language and, like them, can't be written down.”