Alan Bradley
Alan Bradley
self two laughing
I'm at that age where I watch such things with two minds, one that cackles at these capers and another that never gets much beyond a rather jaded and self-conscious smile, like the Mona Lisa.
cultivating
Anyone who knew the word slattern was worth cultivating as a friend.
people
The very best people are like that. They don't entangle you like flypaper.
father military men
Not very good with death? Father was a military man, and military men lived with death; lived for death; lived on death. To a professional soldier, oddly enough, death was life.
vineyards toil chemistry
Chicken fizz! O Lord, protect all of us who toil in the vineyards of experimental chemistry!
cyanide poison ponies
If poisons were ponies, I'd put my money on cyanide.
laughing belly belly-laughs
I was learning that among friends, a smile can be better than a belly laugh.
real knowing together
What intrigued me more than anything else was finding out the way in which everything, all of creation - all of it! - was held together by invisible chemical bonds, and I found a strange, inexplicable comfort in knowing that somewhere, even though we couldn't see it in our own world, there was a real stability.
spoiled spoiled-brat brat
Compared with my life Cinderella was a spoiled brat.
flattery
To be most effective, flattery is always best applied with a trowel.
thinking sky doors
Whenever I'm out-of-doors and find myself wanting to have a first-rate think, I fling myself down on my back, throw my arms and legs out so that I look like an asterisk, and gaze at the sky.
interesting enemy brain
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.