"The man could be frightfully keen...except when he was utterly obtuse."

“Though you sometimes strike me as incapable of improvement, I feel honor-bound to make the attempt.”

““Flog me if you wish,” she said, though her trembling hands belied her brave words. “It will not change the fact that you were wrong, and I was right!”

“I do not pretend to understand how gears and levers can bring forth consciousness, sir, but it certainly appears that somehow they have.”

““And there you see the risk of automata,” Fox replied. “They are all well and good as amusements, I grant you. But when they are built to perform the work of men, surely this must result in the atrophy of the mental processes they replace.”

“That they cannot see beyond that limited horizon is the fault of society.”

“Wordlessly she gestured downward, to the hidden lower limbs which seemed to hold some unearthly power over men’s minds.”