“Uncertainty is the normal state.”

“You can't treat royalty like people with normal perverted desires.”

“The truth is, we value your company, for want of any other. We have been left so much to our own devices—after a while one welcomes the uncertainty of being left to other people's.”

“Now for a handful of guilders I happen to have a private and uncut performance of the rape of the Sabine Women - or rather woman, or rather Alfred -Get your skirt on Alfred!”

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.”

“Septimus. When we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning, we will be all alone, on an empty shore.Thomasina. Then we will dance. Is this a waltz?”

“You don't mind? Life is in the minding.”