“When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your time, you do your work well.”

“If it happens that the human race doesn't make it, then the fact that we were here once will not be altered, that once upon a time we peopled this astonishing blue planet, and wondered intelligentl...”

“I like living in my head because in there, everyone is kind and innocent. Once you start integrating yourself into the world, you realize that people are nasty, mean creatures. They're worse than z...”

“Most people just want to be left in peace to eat their bacon, not realising that there is no peace behind bacon.”

“the serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.”

“Even apocalypse looks less dire when viewed over a plate of bacon.”

“Bowen looked nervously about for peasants. It would be unendurable if they all turned out to be full of instinctive wisdom and natural good manners and unself-conscious grace and a deep, articulate...”

“The German pilot had come up and was standing by smiling as Mr. Parker Pyne finished answering a long interrogation which he had not understood."What have I said?" he asked of the German"That your ...”

“There were the years years of childhood and innocence when I had believed that carminative meant well, carminative. And now, before me lies the rest of my life a day, perhaps, ten years, half a cen...”