I wish to God,” said Gideon with mild exasperation, “that you’d talk—just once—in prose like other people.

Verily, God hath eighteen thousand worlds; and verily, your world is one of them, and this its bright axle-tree.

After I convinced them that I was a harmless novelist, I actually got them to give me a tour of the harem - which is usually off limits for tourists.

Facts are the soil from which the story grows. Imagination is a last resort.

Repressively, Lymond himself answered. “I dislike being discussed as if I were a disease. Nobody ‘got’ me,” he said.

If I can’t be personal, I don’t want to argue,” said his hostess categorically. “I may be missing your points, but you’re much too busy dodging mine.

So she was on her own, Kate thought, and instilled all the friendly helpfulness she could into her next question. “Excuse me, but are you the bad company young Mr. Scott has got into?