Acknowledgements With grateful thanks to the three least-appreciated and hardest-working proselytizers of the written word: independent bookstores, librarians, and teachers.

Steampunk is...the love child of Hot Topic and a BBC costume drama

It's no good choosing your first husband from a school for evil geniuses. Much too difficult to kill.

No one ever explained the octopuses.

I am rather fond of ladybugs. They are so delightfully hemispherical.

I suspect it may be like the difference between a drinker and an alcoholic; the one merely reads books, the other needs books to make it through the day.

How ghastly for her, people actually thinking, with their brains, and right next door. Oh, the travesty of it all.

The ill-informed masses included her own family among their ranks, a family that specialized in being both inconvenient and asinine.

Alexia figured, delightedly, that this meant he did, in fact, tend to traipse around his private apartments in the altogether. Marriage was becoming more and more of an attractive prospect.

Conall,” “Aye, Alexia?” He looked up at her. Was that fear in his caramel eyes? “I am going to take advantage of you,” she said

She took a moment to lament her lack of parasol. Every time she left the house, she felt keenly the absence of her heretofore ubiquitous accessory.

I do not encourage early morning chirpiness, even in those whom I know and love. It is generally a sign of a sloppy mind, and is not to be encouraged.

Christmas is Christ love for mankind.

This is America. We don't call an election before we know who won. That, after all, is the job of the Supreme Court.

You can talk without saying a thing. I don't ever want to be that type of person.

We react very quickly in the market. We can make quick changes.

I am a lolita. I don't believe in growing up. No matter how old I get I remain devoted to ruffles and frills

There are two schools of fried chicken. One is brining in salted water and the other is soaking in either buttermilk or milk. I just combine the two.

A lot can be said for the infinite mercies of God, but the smarts of a good pharmacist, when you get down to it, is worth more.

I don't do drugs. I am drugs.

Leadership is not about being important, it's about serving something important.