“The problem is not the content of textbooks, but the very idea of them.”

“The problem is that I know the textbook answers to any question you care to ask.”

“Taking ideas seriously does not fit with the rhetorical style of textbooks, which presents events so as to make them seem foreordained along a line of constant progress. Including ideas would make history contingent: things could go either way, and have on occasion. The 'right' people, armed with the 'right' ideas, have not always won. When they didn't, the authors would be in the embarrassing position of having to disapprove of an outcome in the past. Including ideas would introduce uncertainty. This is not textbook style.”

“She wasn’t considering it, not really….but he did have a point. It was her job. Save the cold, and the disgusting suggestion that she might actually turn a trick or two wasn’t a half bad idea. That was the problem with Bump. Despite the fact that he was practically a textbook villain – she expected him to grow a mustache to twirl any day- his ideas made sense.”

“He had that feeling he remembered from childhood when he opened a new textbook at the beginning of the term, ignorant of its contents but sensing the new knowledge to come.”

“Ideas can come from anywhere and at any time. The problem with making mental notes is that the ink fades very rapidly.”