“If money is a science, then it is a dark science...it has gone on developing...by its own rules”

“. . . if money is a science, then it is a dark science, darker than alchemy. It split away from Natural Philosophy millennia ago, and has gone on developing ever since, by its own rules.”

“The mysterious Enoch Root meets 8-year-old Benjamin Franklin, Boston, 1713: "Do I look like a schoolmaster to you?" "No, but you talk like one." "You know something of schoolmasters, do you?""Yes, ...”

“Most men would rather be shot through with a broad-headed arrow than be described by you.”

“You mentioned . . . one of the two great labyrinths into which the mind is drawn. What . . . is the other?""The other is the composition of the continuum, or: what is space?”

“This is one of the two great labyrinths into which human minds are drawn: the question of free will versus predestination.”

“It was four o'clock of a stickily wet Saturday. As long as it is anything from Monday to Friday the average library attendant goes around thanking her stars she isn't a school-teacher; but the last...”

“The world is quiet here.”

“I've always said, stuff the engagement ring! Just build me a really big library.”