... knowing what not to know was itself indispensable knowledge.

Ignorance as a deliberate choice, can be used to reinforce prejudice and discrimination.

Only fiction has the power to cross the mental barricades, to make strangers intelligible to each other, because it moves people's hearts as well as engaging their minds.

It's only people, as far as we know, who look up at the stars and wonder what they are.

It takes you to bring the hidden wonders into light. Decide to make it happen.

There's nothing deeper than love. In fairy tales, the princesses kiss the frogs, and the frogs become princes. In real life, the princesses kiss princes, and the princes turn into frogs.

There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world.

We've been through so much together, and most of it was your fault.

Of all the old maid's blessing, the greatest is carte blanche. Spinsterhood is powerful; once a woman is called "that crazy old maid" she can get away with anything.

I feel like one of God's chosen people, having had the opportunity to share, with many fine companions, these varied and lovely realms of our natural world.

Id love to own Newstead, partly because it belonged to Lord Byron, but also to try to uncover what dark secrets really lie beneath.

Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate.

My talent was the uncompromising ability to feel spite.

Specialists are people who always repeat the same mistakes.