What really mattered, Alex supposed, was not how the world saw you, but how you saw yourself, and whether you and the people around you treated one another with respect.

That's my job. To imagine harder than you can.

You can't just give a speech and expect people to fall down and agree with you.

The central opposition between magic and science is the opposition between power and knowledge.

If we were born knowing everything, what would we do with all this time on this earth?

You cannot get an A if you're afraid of getting an F.

I shall attack Chemistry, like a Shark.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, good liberals both, pursued power by offering their candidacies as opportunities for Americans to document their innocence of the nation's past.

The very beautiful rarely love at all; those precious images are placed above the reach of the passions: Time alone is permitted to efface them.

I've been flogging myself to keep my fitness up there.

I'm the wacky one. Wacky. Wacky.