“His favorite saying was, 'Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum europe vincendarum.""'Sometimes I have the urge to conquer large parts of Europe'?" Boyd said, sounding a little incredulous. Isabella hadn't, apparently, been the only one who understood her defiance.She nodded. "Usually he only said it when my brother or I were being particularly horrible.”

“Sometimes I have the urge to conquer large parts of Europe.”

“The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it.”

“My brother," I said with emphasis, in case the snow had blinded her and she hadn't realized exactly who she'd been standing there with.”

“And of course, when you see your brother in the toilet bowl...there's a little voice that say, 'I wonder where he would go...'...if it hadn't been for his head...”

“It is no accident that, of the early Jesuit scholars who were pioneers in making China's culture known in Europe, those who concerned themselves with the Book of Changes were all later declared to be insane or heretic. Indeed, to the Chinese themselves the study of the I Ching is not to be taken lightly. By an unwritten law, only those advanced in years regard themselves as ready to learn from it. Confucius is said to have been seventy years old when he first took up the Book of Changes.”