The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag (Flavia de Luce, #2)

by Alan Bradley

being alone and being lonely are not at all the same thing?”

How exciting it was to think that, long after the world had ended, whatever was left of our bodies would be transformed into a dazzling blizzard of diamond dust, blowing out towards eternity in the red glow of a dying sun.

Inspiration from outside one’s self is like the heat in an oven. It makes passable Bath buns. But inspiration from within is like a volcano: It changes the face of the world.”

How curious it was, I thought, that we humans had taken millions of years to crawl up out of the swamps and yet, within minutes of death, we were already tobogganing back down the slope.