Quotes from Douglas Preston

He said we didn't merit a family all by ourselves. I'm not sure I would go that far, but it's an interesting thought. And an idea influenced, no doubt, by the existence of Jennie. In the end, you see, because of Jennie, he lost his objectivity.

Occam's razor. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

buck fifty to make

He said he had been converted to atheism at the age of six, when his Sunday school teacher had described with relish the eternal fires of Hell.

Holmesian philosophy more apt: 'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

thirty-six dollars

Mignini's proposed motive—that the murder was an occult rite—may seem far-fetched to American readers, but it was no surprise to those who knew Mignini. That had also been his theory of motive in the Monster of Florence case.

Mary and Joseph," he said, "turned a very embarrassing situation into one of the greatest coups in history. Clever, clever, clever!

looking across the bay toward Staten Island.

You could tell a lot about a person by meeting his brother.

What was it Voltaire said? "To the living we owe respect, but to the dead only truth." I honor Hugo's memory by telling the truth about him.

Your grandmother sent me to church every day, and it did me no harm. It was in church that I was converted to atheism. Also, it's a wise hedge. I myself might take it up on my deathbed, just in case.

game theory, was called the "ultimatum game.

Jennie understands love. Yes, murmured Mrs. Archibald, she knows what love is. I said: then she can understand religion, because religion starts with love. Religion is love. Without first loving God and feeling God's love for us, there can be no religion.

No, you don't destroy the rich—you do as Jesus did, and convert them.

He was refreshingly, even alarmingly, direct

You see, what we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our questioning. And what we are, of course, is a response to what we observe.

Perhaps the ghastliest disease endemic to mosquitia is Mucocutaneous Leishmaniasis, sometimes called white leprosy, caused by the bite of an infected sand fly. The Leishmania parasite migrates to the mucus membranes of the victim's nose and lips and eats them away, eventually creating a giant, weeping sore where the face used to be.

Rather than rushing to tear things down during the architectural vandalism period of the 1950s and '60s, Savannah had preserved its link with the past, which in a personal way spoke to Constance and her own peculiar connection to distant times.

She became particularly irritable toward me and Sandy. She would not allow us to approach her, let alone touch her, and she often broke into loud screams if we approached. She also became curiously incommunicative and ignored many of our efforts to sign to her. Lea and I knew well that chimpanzees become difficult when they reach puberty. And yet, we had managed to persuade ourselves that Jennie would be different. We felt we knew Jennie even better than we knew each other. We were wrong.

they develop slowly, beneath the surface—like a subcutaneous abscess.

Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast.

In Lake's experience, even eccentric and unconventional people carefully curated their persona. Very few truly didn't give a goddamn what others thought.

The waitresses were talking in low tones, but not so low that she could not catch what they said. She casually recorded the relevant employee names and details in the squares of her crossword with an antique gold pencil. After a quarter of an hour, Constance contrived to knock the dish of clotted cream off her table.