But the voice at the other end was all too familiar. And if I am going to be honest, it was one that, had I not been wearing two cardigans and a vest, I would have said made my blood run cold.

"It wouldn't be so bad if she liked novels, but she only wants biographies of historical figures so she can point out the mistakes in them to me."

geographers had long ago learned that if you announced a site of dangerous magic existed nearby and might explode at any given moment, it wouldn't so much induce panic as send people rushing to that site so they could poke their finger in it, take their photograph with it, and establish a souvenir shop at the edge.

Geography is a science of measurement; for example, "How many minutes until I can get out of this mosquito-ridden bog and go for a beer?"