The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches (Flavia de Luce, #6)

by Alan Bradley

Daffy once told me that there are approximately half a million words in the English language. With so many to choose from, you’d think that just one person, at least, could find something more original than that stupid word “sorry.”

When it comes to chemistry, impatience is not a virtue. Half an hour is far too long to engage in any activity, even one that’s enjoyable.

Chemistry teaches us all that can be known about corruption, and I realized with a shock that I had learned more at the altar of the Bunsen burner than at all the altars of the competition combined.

We were all of us mourners overtaken by the moment: It was not ours to shape. We must give ourselves over to being the Grieving Family, upon whom others must be permitted to shower sympathy.

We might as well face it: Death is a bore. It is even harder on the survivors than on the deceased, who at least don’t have to worry about when to sit and when to stand, or when to permit a pale smile and when to glance tragically away.

One of the marks of a truly great mind, I had discovered, is the ability to feign stupidity on demand.

that the facts closest to our noses are so often the most overlooked?

Good news, it seems to me, has no place in the midst of tragedy, when it cannot be fully appreciated—when it is dampened and diluted by the atmosphere in which it is announced and robbed of its healing power.

Foolishness in a grown man, no matter how lighthearted, is disgusting.

“What are we going to do, Dogger?” It seemed a reasonable question. After all he had been through, surely Dogger knew something of hopeless situations. “We shall wait upon tomorrow,” he said. “But—what if tomorrow is worse than today?” “Then we shall wait upon the day after tomorrow.”