“I attempted in vain to calculate the size of the holdings on the shelves, floor on floor, only to boggle hopelessly, baffled by bibliographic boundlessness.”

“My contract had specified only that I 'should undertake work upon the fossil Arthropoda,' which left me free to roam through hundreds of millions of years. It might as well have said: 'Amuse yourself--for money.”

“I believe profoundly in the importance of museums; I would go as far as to say that you can judge a society by the quality of its museums. ”

“Westwards along the basement, I let myself through a heavy door just beyond the dead giraffes. There was a notice on the wall that read "Departmental cock"--I never did find out what that meant. ”

“But, for now, I retreated back down the little hidden staircase into the familiar world of the basement of the Natural History Museum, and to the embrace of the trilobites.”

“I confess that the idea of taking off one's boots in a howling squall to safeguard fossils that had survived since the Precambrian had its funny side.”

“Whether we find it appealing or not is another question, but personally I like being fourth cousin to a mushroom and having a bonobo as my closest living relative. It makes me feel a part of the world.”