“You must not lie about trilobites, nor yet about time.”

“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 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. ”

“The great museums may harbour the conscience for the natural world, not merely provide its catalogue.”

“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.”

“Later . . . the sports jacket became a kind of signature uniform for the museum scientist, complete with leather elbow patches. It indicated an endearing otherworldliness. Too much smartness might betray the wrong priorities, and an inadequate grasp of carabids.”

“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.”