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Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Okay, be good, be safe, and do what your father tells you, except when it contradicts the first two things I said.”
“So, what do we do now?” Brewster asked. “We keep looking around. Hopefully, we’ll get an idea.” “That’s your best plan?” “Your best plan was to ask me what to do.” “I never said I had a better idea, just that yours wasn’t good.”
Despite the different culture and historical period, London was still a city, and in many ways, all cities are the same. There is never a shortage of people dressed oddly. Indeed, openly gawking or acting uncomfortable is the greater infraction, as intolerance of other people’s habits or tastes is a larger threat to the peace in an urban area than someone’s outfit not looking quite right.
“Time flies when it flows asynchronously.”
“First rule of getting along with Americans, mate. Don’t say anything bad about America.
“You’re teenagers. Your thirst to know all of your parents’ secrets is only topped by your disinterest in telling them any of yours.”
Sid said, “Indeed. I’m sure he’s mellowed with age. Most men do.” “They get wiser, and stop letting things bother them?” Brewster asked. Gilbert said, “No. Things bother them more. It’s just they don’t have the energy to act on it like they used to.”
The four of them either chuckled or let out the single sharp exhalation through their nostrils that signals that something didn’t make you laugh, but that you recognize it as funny anyway.
“Nobody likes a gloater.” “And yet everybody likes to gloat. Life is full of such incongruities, don’t you find?”
“It’s absolutely crucial that you do things the right way, even if nobody else will ever know. You’ll know, and your opinion of your work’s as important as anybody else’s.”
“When we get home, you’re sticking a dollar in the alliteration jar.”
The young tend to be disgusted at what they become, and the old have contempt for what they once were.”
in time you’ll learn that printing something on a board doesn’t make it true. For example, in my experience, slower traffic seldom keeps right.”
Being a grown-up is like when someone trains their dog to sit with a weenie balanced on its nose until they give the dog permission to eat it, but you’re the one with the weenie on your nose and you’re the one withholding permission from yourself to eat it. Learning not to allow yourself to do all the dumb things you’d really like to do is part of what makes you an adult.
