“I guess it started in London, the night our dad blew up the British museum.”
“What the Acropolis in Athens looked like, including the Parthenon of the gods, is best told today at the British Museum in London, which houses the marble statuary removed by Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to Constantinople in 1801-05, and sold at a knockdown price (only 23 million dollars in our money) to the British Museum a couple of decades later. Although Elgin had or bought the permission of the Turkish sultan then ruling Greece, some contemporaries, including the poet and pro-Greek activist Lord Byron, already denounced the Elgin Marbles as 'pillage.' So the Greek government has claimed since the 1970s, but the British won't return them.”
“Somehow, this was one oddity too many. He could accept "Mind the Gap" and the Earl's Court, and even the strange library. But damn it, like all Londoners, he knew his Tube map, and this was going too far. "There isn't a British Museum Station," said Richard, firmly.”
“I’d been to the British museum before. In fact I’ve been in more museums than I like to admit—it makes me sound like a total geek.[That’s Sadie in the background, yelling I am a total geek. Thanks, Sis.]”
“The British version of 'Shit My Dad Says' is really entertaining.”
“Most kids start talking by age two. I didn't say a word until I was twelve. I was just angry and defiant I guess. My first word wasn't "Mom" or "Dad." It was "No.”