“All the nut eaters and food faddists I have ever known, died early after a long period of senile decay - Winston Churchill”

“If Bacchus ever had a color he could claim for his own, it should surely be the shade of tannin on drunken lips, of John Keat's 'purple-stained mouth', or perhaps even of Homer's dangerously wine-dark sea.”

“I realized it was like a dating agency: the ions are the lost souls looking for mates; the electrolyte is the agency that can help them find each other.”

“...almost every pearl on sale today was born of the planned sexual violation of a small creature, and that considerable suffering hangs on those necklace strings.”

“Every mountain top is within reach if you just keep climbing.”

“What they signified was precious, but what they were was not.”

“If you dare try to leave me behind, I'll follow on foot, and when I die in the snow, Ill come back and haunt you. I'll make your life a complete misery. No ghost will ever have been as inventive in its nastiness as I'll be: I'll turn your food rancid; I'll transform your drink into blood; I'll howl and moan throughout the night; there'll be no place safe from me. And don't think I couldn't do it, Thirrin, Queen of Icemark, because I can assure you, I could.”