“He sat staring before him, seeing nothing but a long line of Mortimers, inexhaustable and prolific to the end of time.”

“...but wasn't everyone in England supposed to be a detective? Wasn't every crime, no matter how complex, solved in a timely fashion by either a professional or a hobbyist? That's the impression you get from British books and TV shows. Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hetty Wainthropp, Inspector George Gently: they come from every class and corner of the country. There's even Edith Pargeter's Brother Cadfael, a Benedictine monk who solved crimes in twelfth-century Shrewsbury. No surveillance cameras, no fingerprints, not even a telephone, and still he cracked every case that came his way.”

“Not his match! And have you not the heart in you to be anything but best? How many are his match? How many in this world do you think stand in the front rank? Are all the rest of us to give up and sit on our hands rather than serve humbly where we deserve?”

“He sat staring before him, seeing nothing but a long line of Mortimers, inexhaustable and prolific to the end of time.”

“A dead eagle he might have buried, but he had chosen rather to light a fire for a phoenix.”