“Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China an...”

“Right, by tomorrow morning everyone will have congregated in Le Havre and you can all pile in the car and come back out here together," said Tristan in a rapid monotone, as if needing to rationaliz...”

“A few dud universes can really clutter up your basement.”

“Is power like the vis viva and the quantite davancement? That is, is it conserved by the universe, or is it like shares of a stock, which may have great value one day, and be worthless the next? If...”

“Nell did not imagine that Constable Moore wanted to get into a detailed discussion of recent events, so she changed the subject. "I think I have finally worked out what you were trying to tell me, ...”

“In your Primer you have a resource that will make you highly educated, but it will never make you intelligent. That comes from life. Your life up to this point has given you all the experience you ...”

“Amy, Dan, and Nellie were sitting at a table in a conference room, examining reproductions of Franklin documents-some so rare, the librarians told her, the only copies existed in Paris. "Yeah, here...”

“Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.”

“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, ...”

“Nobody in Colonial America, to be sure, believed that society owed every child the ultimate in education, but intelligence, industry, and thrift combined with ambition got many a poor man's son int...”

“We have been gradually finding out that there is more democracy in letting a committee or representative ten to details than in making everybody's business nobody's business.”