He found Pendergast's cool gaze on him, and he fidgeted. He'd forgotten about those eyes. They made you feel like you had just been stripped of your secrets.

There are so many journalists out there, I hate to say it, who are lazy and don't do their research - and it shows.

The mandalas were meant to be objects of contemplation, aids to meditation, their proportions magically balanced to purify and calm the mind. To stare at a mandala was to experience, if only briefly, the nothingness that is at the heart of enlightenment.

It's a very bad habit, but one I find hard to break.

Hubris and science are incompatible.

The wise and good are outnumbered a thousand to one by the brutal and stupid.

Once again, we shall have to operate not only outside the box, but outside the room containing the box.