There are secrets everywhere. I think everyone's parents have secrets. You just have to know where to look for them.

It was darker than a pitch-black panther, covered in tar, eating black licorice at the very bottom of the deepest part of the Black Sea.

The key to good eavesdropping is not getting caught.

To hear the phrase "our only hope" always makes one anxious, because it means that if the only hope doesn't work, there is nothing left.

There are many reasons, of course, why someone might snap their fingers and grin. If you heard some pleasing music, for instance, you might snap your fingers and grin to demonstrate that the music had charms that could soothe your savage breast. If you were employed as a spy, you might snap your fingers and grin in order to deliver a message in secret snapping-and-grinning code.

I think pirates, like astronauts, particularly for a boy, are always kind of worth thinking about.

If you have ever slept in a covered casserole dish on the highest peak of a mountain range, then you know that it is an uncomfortable place to lay one's head, even if you find a dish towel inside it that can serve as a blanket.