Daniel Waterhouse does not own slaves.... So little Godfrey sits on the lap, not of some Angolan negress, but… — Neal Stephenson
Daniel Waterhouse does not own slaves.... So little Godfrey sits on the lap, not of some Angolan negress, but of their neighbor: the daft but harmless Mrs. Goose, who comes into their home occasionally to do the one thing that she apparently can do: to entertain children by spouting all manner of nonsensical stories and doggerel that she has collected or invented.... Many words are said, but they make no more impact on Daniel than Mrs. Goose's incoherent narratives about cutlery leaping over cœlestial bodies and sluttish hags living in discarded footwear.
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"My father, Drake, educated me for one reason alone," Daniel finally says. "To assist him in his preparations for the Apocalypse. He reckoned it would occur in the year 1666—Number of the Beast and all that... When I came of age, I would be a man of the cloth, with the full university education, well versed in many dead classical languages, so that I could stand on the Cliffs of Dover and personally welcome Jesus Christ back to England in fluent Aramaic."
"It is a symbol of Mercury--patron of commerce--who has been worshipped in this cellar--and in this city--for a thousand years, by Bishops as well as business-men. It is a cult that adapts itself to any religion, just as easily as quicksilver adapts itself to any container."
"I believe that binary arithemetickal engines will be of enormous significance"
