Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought.

Some things are fairly obvious when it's a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them.

Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended.

...it is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done.

I [...] vowed that rather than let Alzheimer's take me, I would take it. I would live my life as ever to the full and die, ­before the disease mounted its last ­attack, in my own home, in a chair on the lawn, with a brandy in my hand to wash down whatever modern ­version of the "Brompton cocktail" some ­helpful medic could supply. And with ­Thomas Tallis on my iPod, I would shake hands with Death.

He was determined to discover the underlying logic behind the universe. Which was going to be hard, because there wasn't one.

The only thing more dangerous then a vampire crazed with blood lust was a vampire crazed with anything else. All the meticulous single-mindedness that went into finding young women who slept with their bedroom window open got channeled into some other interest, with merciless and painstaking efficiency.