Mark Carwardine's role, essentially, was to be the one who knew what he was talking about. My role, and one for which I was entirely qualified, was to be an extremely ignorant non-zoologist to whom everything that happened would come as a complete surprise.

Their minds sang with the ecstatic knowledge that either what they were doing was completely and utterly and totally impossible or that physics had a lot of catching up to do.

Imagine" he said, "never even thinking, 'We are alone,' simply because it has never occurred to you to think that there's any other way to be.

If there was one thing life had taught her it was that there are times when you do not go back for your bag and times when you do. It had yet to teach her to distinguish between the two types of occasion.

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?

If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like. ... But on the other hand, if somebody says, 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday,' you say, 'Fine, I respect that.'