“You'll often hear the phrase "science doesn't know everything." Well, of course it doesn't know everything. But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean that it knows nothing.”

“Science knows it doesn't know everything; otherwise, it'd stop. But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you.”

“You don't sit down and write a wish list about the person you are going to fall violently in love with. It just doesn't work like that.”

“Money is to Everything as an Aeroplane is to Australia. The aeroplane isn't Australia, but it remains the only practical way we know of reaching it. So perhaps, metonymically, the aeroplane is Australia after all.”

“This is the point. One technology doesn't replace another, it complements. Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.”

“The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriousity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.”

“You think I have more than most people dream of? What other people dream of doesn't matter. I always had less than I ever dreamt of. All I ever dreamt of was family. A father and a mother. Most people don't even need to dream of such luxuries, they take them for granted. That is what I used to dwell on, alone in my bedroom. I dwelt as all children do, on the injustice. Injustice is the most terrible thing in the world, Oliver. Everything that is evil springs from it and only a cheap soul can abide it without anger.”