To all those who lead monotonous lives in the hope that they may experience at second hand the delights and dangers of adventure. [author's dedication]

One knows so little. When one knows more it is too late.

It is clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying, and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.

One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood.

If you love, you will suffer, and if you do not love, you do not know the meaning of a Christian life.

Nobody believes in magicians any more, nobody believes that anyone can come along and wave a wand and turn you into a frog. But if you read in the paper that by injecting certain glands scientists can alter your vital tissues and you'll develop froglike characteristics, well, everybody would believe that.

Women observe subconsciously a thousand little details, without knowing they are doing so. Their subconscious mind adds these little things together - and they call the result intuition.