“Once a culture becomes entirely advertising friendly, it seizes to be a culture at all.”

“Having told the truth for years as a first-rate reporter, Jason Leopold now comes completely clean about himself and also sheds light on his imperiled profession. A riveting account of just how hard the truth can be.”

“Cookbooks are almost a substitution for a lost sense of culture. People want some other life than the one they're living, so they buy a cookbook with pictures and imagine themselves as part of that life.”

“Indeed,' he said, tapping his fingers very rapidly on the desk. 'Indeed. I'm very pleased to know you, sir. Do me the honour of sitting down.'Blinking reproachfully at Fen, Cadogan obeyed, though as to what honour he could be doing Mr Rosseter in lowering his behind on to a leather chair he was not entirely clear.”

“There is nothing left but the attempt and not trying is the same as failing.”

“The culture of the Epic Fail, in its rituals of comic sacrifice, is a culture of sublimated predation.”

“None but the most blindly credulous will imaging the characters and events in this story to be anything but fictitious. It is true that the ancient and noble city of Oxford is, of all the towns of England, the likeliest progenitor of unlikely events and persons. But there are limits.”