“It is a defect of God's humor that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them.”

“Comparing what we're looking for misses the point. It's wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we're going out the way we came in. That's why you can't believe in the afterlife, Valentine....”

“Chater: You dare to call me that. I demand satisfaction!Septimus: Mrs Chater demanded satisfaction and now you are demanding satisfaction. I cannot spend my time day and night satisfying the demand...”

“If knowledge isn't self-knowledge it isn't doing much, mate. Is the universe expanding? Is it contracting? Is it standing on one leg and singing 'When Father Painted the Parlour'? Leave me out. I c...”

“Seduced her? Every time I turned round she was up a library ladder. In the end I gave in. That reminds meI spotted something between her legs that made me think of you.”

“Carnal embrace is sexual congress, which is the insertion of the male genital organ into the female genital organ for purposes of procreation and pleasure. Fermats last theorem, by contrast, assert...”

“One thing seems certain. Our galaxy is now in the brief springtime of its lifea springtime made glorious by such brilliant blue-white stars as Vega and Sirius, and, on a more humble scale, our own ...”

“You are exporting disorder [in the form of heat into the Universe] now as you read this book. You are hastening the demise of everything that exists, bringing forward by your very existence the arr...”

“The universe is full of fuel.”

“Lost Time is never found again.”

“How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money. Money mistakes can be corrected, but time is gone forever.”

“Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them.”