“It may surprise you to find that the older one gets the more we appreciate the wisdom of those we did not think possessed it. (Bascot)”

“All what we think and know is an illusion. Nothing exists. Everything is an opinion.”

“Who we’re told to be carries the weight of history behind it. We may not like it but we better know it. Who we’re told to be is no accident, but rather a purposeful construction of centuries of accumulated fear. Who we’re told to be can be deliberately deconstructed.”

“Stuart's a wizard with those kinds of things," she said."What kinds of things?""Oh, he can find anything online."Debbie was obviously one of those parents who still hadn't quite grasped that using the Internet was not exactly wizardry, and that we could all find anything online. I didn't say this, because you don't want people to feel that they've missed something really obvious, even when they have.”

“Fanny May LeakBorn Poplar, London 1886”

“It was a bit on the frantic side, maybe because neither one of us had done the metal preparation, so we were both thinking, Oh, right! Kissing! Quickly! Quickly! More movement! Deploy tongue!”

“I think, consciously or not, what we readers do each time we open a book is to set off a search for authenticity. We want to get closer to the heart of things, and sometimes even a few good sentences contained in an otherwise unexceptional book can crystallize vague feelings, fleeting physical sensations, or, sometimes, profound epiphanies." pg. xvi”