Show Holmes a drop of water and he would deduce the existence of the Atlantic. Show it to me and I would look for a tap. That was the difference between us.

You're trying to tell me that everything you've done is for a good cause. You think that all this killing is worth it because of the results. I'm not sure I agree. Lots of people work for charity; lots of people want to change the world. But they don't have to behave like you.

My favorite part of writing a book is thinking up the ideas, and that can start a long time before I actually sit down at my desk.

Statues lined the stairs and stood, dotted across the roof. But they had been brutalized by time and the weather. Some were missing arms. Many had no faces. Once they had been saints and angels. Two hundred years standing in London had turned them into cripples.

We're meant to be friends but you never tell me anything.

What is this place? Hogwarts? -- Alex Rider

My father was aloof, very strange and very distant.