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The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Alan Bradley

Top 10 Best Quotes

“I am often thought of as being remarkably bright, and yet my brains, more often than not, are busily devising new and interesting ways of bringing my enemies to sudden, gagging, writhing, agonizing death.”

“If you remember nothing else, remember this: 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.”

“You are unreliable, Flavia,' he said. 'Utterly unreliable.' Of course I was! It was one of the things I loved most about myself.”

“I felt a pang -- a strange and inexplicable pang that I had never felt before. It was homesickness. Now, even more than I had earlier when I'd first glimpsed it, I longed to be transported into that quiet little landscape, to walk up the path, to take a key from my pocket and open the cottage door, to sit down by the fireplace, to wrap my arms around myself, and to stay there forever and ever.”

“There's a lot to be said for being alone. But you and I know, don't we, Flavia, that being alone and being lonely are not at all the same thing?”

“Seen from the air, the male mind must look rather like the canals of Europe, with ideas being towed along well-worn towpaths by heavy-footed dray horses. There is never any doubt that they will, despite wind and weather, reach their destinations by following a simple series of connected lines. But the female mind, even in my limited experience, seems more of a vast and teeming swamp, but a swamp that knows in an instant whenever a stranger--even miles away--has so much as dipped a single toe into her waters. People who talk about this phenomenon, most of whom know nothing whatsoever about it, call it "woman's intuition.”

“To be most effective, flattery is always best applied with a trowel.”

“Experience has taught me that an expected answer is often better than the truth.”

“I have to admit, though, that Cynthia was a great organizer, but then, so were the men with whips who got the pyramids built.”

“Sanctified cyanide Super-quick arsenic Higgledy-piggledy Into the Soup. Put out the mourning lamps Call for coffin clamps Teach them to trifle with Flavia de Luce!”

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Book Keywords:

dreaming, humor, wrath, homesickness, enemies, loneliness, subtlety, intelligence, dark-humor, cottage, flattery, flavia-de-luce, inspirational, nostalgia, vengeance, sarcasm

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