“The trouble with unknown enemies is that they are so difficult to identify.”

It was hate at first sight, clean, pure and strong as grain alcohol.

To argue without knowledge is like trying to weave without thread.

Noble causes have a deplorable effect on the morals of the persons who espouse them.

I have learned that particularly clever ideas do not always stand up under close scrutiny.

stereotypes are awfully misleading. There are typical librarians, but not all librarians are typical.

Sekhmet crawled onto Ramses’s lap and began to purr. ‘The creature oozes like a furry slug,’ said Ramses, eyeing it without favor.

Children, I feel, are as much entitled to privacy as human beings.

Humor is an excellent method of keeping a tight rein on unproductive displays of emotion.

The way to get on with a cat is to treat it as an equal – or even better, as the superior it knows itself to be.

I do hope you have some money. I’m getting tired of hitting people.

Emerson,’ I said, choosing my words with care, ‘it is a sheer drop from the cleft down to the base of the cliff. If you are bent on breaking your arm or your leg or your neck or all three, find a place closer to home so we won’t have to carry you such a distance.

I would not be at all surprised to find that it was for gold that Cain committed the first murder. (It happened a very long time ago, and Holy Writ, though no doubt divinely inspired, is a trifle careless about details. God is not a historian).

I knew the answer, and–of course–so did Ramses. He has superb breath control and always gets in ahead of me.

The only way to do it is to do it: by writing, writing, writing.

I can do a book in three months if I spend all day, seven days a week at it and, in fact, I work better that way.

Spring is always cruel, with its false promise of resurrection.