“After all, what else is scientific enquiry of any sort other than a controlled version of banging one's head against the universe until something gives?”

“Luck, like a Russian car, generally only works if you push it.”

“Everything is out there if you know how to find it, and have the patience. I don't and haven't, but that's my problem.”

“After all, what else is scientific enquiry of any sort other than a controlled version of banging one's head against the universe until something gives?”

“If the Good Lord had intended us to crawl, he'd have given us a hundred legs and an exosqueleton.”

“Love is an optical illusion that makes you believe the object of your affection is the most beautiful person in the world.”

“Necessity is the mother of invention, which probably explains why invention’s father left home on the pretext of buying a newspaper and hasn’t been heard of since.”

“As the Athenians to the Pnyx, the antique Romans to the Campus Martius, or our Nordic ancestors to the All-Thing, so the folk of Tilling flocked to the High Street for extempore parliament.”

“{She] laughed so that the street seemed full of little silver bells,”

“How careless of me!" By which she meant that she had deduced that he had found [them] in his pocket and pitied him for needing to be forever in the right.”

“Most thoughtful,"...[he said] politely. This cheerfulness was ambiguous, Had she determined to ignore ...[the] coup entirely--an established tactic, most irritating to the innovator but hard to sustain over long periods of time--or had she already evolved her counter-strategy?”