“Because you can't unknow your life's experiences,' Grif said. This was his area of expertise.”

“A wonderful area for speculative academic work is the unknowable. These days religious subjects are in disfavor, but there are still plenty of good topics. The nature of consciousness, the workings of the brain, the origin of aggression, the origin of language, the origin of life on earth, SETI and life on other worlds...this is all great stuff. Wonderful stuff. You can argue it interminably. But it can't be contradicted, because nobody knows the answer to any of these topics.”

“Writers have no real area of expertise. They are merely generalists with a highly inflamed sense of punctuation.”

“The implication was that either the people in the room needed to change their areas of knowledge and expertise or people themselves needed to be changed”

“Her areas of expertise are bar codes, book titles and maps - she has an original Parker Brothers map of the world.”

“You can't be friends with the person you were meant to spend your life with," he said, his eyes darkening. "So get on with your life and leave mine the hell alone.”