"A willingness to satisfy contradictory objections to one's manner of writing might turn one's work into the donkey that finally found itself being carried by its masters, since some readers suggest that quotation marks are disruptive of pleasant progress; others, that notes to what should be complete are a pedantry or evidence of an insufficiently realized task. But since in anything I have written, there have been lines in which the chief interest is borrowed, and I have not yet been able to outgrow this hybrid method of composition, acknowledgements seem only honest. Perhaps those who are annoyed by provisos, detainments, and postscripts could be persuaded to take probity on faith and disregard the notes."

"He had a wife who was still sort of his responsibility, and when it came to his son there was no sort-of at all. Even thinking of Johnny was dangerous. Every time his mind turned to the boy, Clay felt…"

"Let me say that I do not watch my works often. I focus on my job and I just let it be. You have no control over what the editors will do with your work so there’s no point worrying. You’re attached to…"

"his work is not written to gain a public, but piam memoriam prodere conditoris nostri and is intended especially for those who have known and loved Francis Galton in the past, or who may in the future…"

"The problem black holes are supposed to fix is this: if the big bang theory were true, the matter should be evenly distributed in space. Since matter is not evenly distributed in space the believers i…"