"I go on expeditions for the same reason an estate agent sells houses - to pay the bills."

“To be honest, I know that a lot of Asian parents are secretly shocked and horrified by many aspects of Western parenting.”

“The Human is the most insane species”

“[In] 2010, Woody Allen said that he felt Barack Obama should be a dictator so that he could get things done, and the first thing obviously that Woody Allen wanted done is to make it legal to have sex with stepdaughters.”

“A lawyer from Africa wants to marry Malia Obama in exchange for goats, sheep, and cows. In response, President Obama said, 'Don't be ridiculous. My daughter isn't marrying a lawyer.'”

“Physical weather certainly is beyond our control. ... But human weather - the psychological climate of the world - is not beyond our control. The human race is its own rain and its own sun. It creates its own cyclones and anti-cyclones. The ridges of high pressure which we sometimes enjoy, the troughs of low pressure which we so often endure, are of our own making and nobody else's.”

Source : Jan Struther (1956). “A pocketful of pebbles”

“And yet, over the years I've met so many people like Jared who seem to be more at home, happier, living in a country on of their birth. ... Not political refugees, escaping a repressing regime, nor economic refugees, crossing a border in search of a better-paying job. The are hedonic refugees, moving to a new land, a new culture, because they are happier there. Usually hedonic refugees have an ephiphany, a moment of great clarity when they realize, beyond a doubt, that they were born in the wrong country.”

“You two have to promise to be careful!" Sinead handed Amy a small plastic bag. "I made you a going-away present–a high-powered miniature smoke bomb. Could come in handy against the Vespers. It works with knockout gas, so I tossed in a couple of breathing filters." "That's the Cahill equivalent of a Hallmark moment," Dan observed. "A smoke bomb. When you care enough to send the very best–explosives." "I'm not a flowers-and-candy kind of girl," Sinead informed him.”

Source : Gordon Korman, Scholastic Multi-Platform, (2011). “The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers Book 1: The Medusa Plot”, p.48, Scholastic Inc.

“Only a few people seem to realize that social harmony and peace with nature, between people, and within the individual only can come about when the material and spiritual realms are reconciled.”