The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie Quotes

“This was the way the ancient alchemists had practiced their art: fire and steam, steam and fire. Distillation. How I loved this work. Distillation. I said it aloud. “Dis-till-ation!”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“I shot him a broad smile, a smile wide enough to present him with a good view of the wire braces that caged my teeth. Although they gave me the look of a dirigible with the skin off, Father always liked being reminded that he was getting his money’s worth.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“Retribution was not long in coming, but then with Ophelia, it never was. Ophelia was not, as I was, a long-range planner who believed in letting the soup of revenge simmer to perfection.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“Miss Mountjoy! The retired Miss Mountjoy! I had heard tales about “Miss Mountjoy and the Reign of Terror.” She had been Librarian-in-Chief of the Bishop’s Lacey Free Library when Noah was a sailor. All sweetness on the outside, but on the inside, “The Palace of Malice.” Or so I’d been told. (Mrs. Mullet again, who reads detective novels.) The villagers still held novenas to pray she wouldn’t come out of retirement.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“I knew that Feely and Daffy would never condescend to respond to a bell (“ So utterly Pavlovian,” Feely said),”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“Ophelia once told me that even when news had come of Harriet’s death, it had to be sent by telegram because Father refused to believe anything he hadn’t seen in print.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“This was one of the ways to optimize a lie: shovel on the old frankness.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie