The human body is amazing," she said. If you deprive it of one sensory input, the other senses take over, almost instantly.

Coincidence was a concept he did not entirely trust. As someone who had spent his life exploring the hidden interconnectivity of disparate emblems and ideologies, Langdon viewed the world as a web of profoundly intertwined histories and events. The connections may be invisible, he often preached to his symbology classes at Harvard, but they are always there, buried just beneath the surface.

Washington, D.C., has everything that Rome, Paris and London have in the way of great architecture - great power bases. Washington has obelisks and pyramids and underground tunnels and great art and a whole shadow world that we really don't see.

Although I studied Dante's Inferno as a student, it wasn't until recently, while researching in Florence, that I came to appreciate the enduring influence of Dante's work on the modern world.

Substantiate or suffocate, Ms. Vetra. Mickey's ticking.

I didn't understand how funny this play Much Ado About Nothing truly was until I became an English teacher and had to teach it. There is no wittier dialogue anywhere.

As he flushed, an unexpected realization hit him. This is the Pope's toilet, he thought. I just took a leak in the Pope's toilet. He had to chuckle. The Holy Throne.