The Third Twin
by Ken Follett
(New York: Ballantine, 1996)
Everybody’s weird in their own way.
Page 68.
There was nothing better than the kick of seeing enlightenment dawn in a student’s face.
Pages 81-81.
Your genes steer you toward certain environmental experiences and away from others. Babies with different temperaments elicit different treatment from their parents. Active toddlers have different experiences than sedentary ones, even in the same house. Daredevil adolescents take more drugs than choirboys in the same town.
Page 82.
Dennis had the interpersonal skills of a three-year-old. He grabbed anything he wanted, he had trouble sharing, he was frightened of strangers, and if he could not get his way he lost his temper and became violent.
Page 147.
When he was not imagining himself making love to Jeannie, he had fantasies of strangling her.
Page 156.
The boss’s style spread to the staff: an ill-mannered person always had rude employees.
Page 157.
Manipulating the media was hazardous: a good reporter might look past the obvious story and start asking why it was being planted.
Page 157.
Without a man in her life she needed her underwear like the needed shores.
Page 160.
Like most superstar academics, he did very little teaching. … His role was to direct and supervise the research of the scientists in the department and to add the prestige of his name to the papers they wrote.
Page 178.
She would say she did not want company. Depressed people usually felt that way, even when they really needed a shoulder to cry on.
Page 202.
He enjoyed watching her move around her home, closing a drawer with her hip, squinting at a wineglass to see if it was clean, picking up a corkscrew with her long, capable fingers.
Page 205.
I’m falling in love with this woman, he thought. It’s not just that I want to sleep with her - though it’s that too. I want her to be my friend. I want to watch TV with her, and go to the supermarket with her, and give her NyQuil on a spoon when she has a cold. I want to see how she brushes her teeth and pulls on her jeans and buttes her toast. I want her to ask me does the orange lipstick suit her and should she buy razors and what time will I be home.
Pages 272-273.
She was so lovely it hurt.
Page 273.
In her experience, on the rate occasions when a man put a woman’s needs ahead of his own, he expected her to act like a geisha for a month in gratitude.
Page 294.
The man had to feel strange in this situation. It must be like Dr. Frankenstein being questioned by his monster.
Page 303.
Evolution is a trial-and-error business. You can’t prevent nature’s failed experiments without eliminating the successes too.
Page 355.
They parked in the biggest parking lot in the world. In the Midwest there were towns smaller tan the Pentagon parking lot.
Page 359.
Kids can live with ore or less any set of rules so long as they know what they are. It’s arbitrary tyranny that gets them mixed up.
Page 371.
Jim was at his most offensive when under pressure.
Page 392.
They’re white supremacists all dressed up with modern science.
Page 419.