“Being in love, as both Plato and David Bowie have pointed out, is horrible.”

“If you took a couple of David Bowies and stuck one of the David Bowies on the top of the other David Bowie, then attached another David Bowie to the end of each of the arms of the upper of the first two David Bowies and wrapped the whole business up in a dirty beach robe you would then have something which didn't exactly look like John Watson, but which those who knew him would find hauntingly familiar.”

“This is a mad planet," David Bowie said in 1971. "It's doomed to madness.”

“If you believe that I'm a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an astronaut.”

“In his day, liking someone like David Bowie would have been the domain of degenerate officers in black and white movies about nazis.”

“Good grief," said Merlin. "You look like the bastard child of Dumbledore and David Bowie. No, sorry, Dumbledore and Ziggy Stardust.”