“A village somewhere was missing it's idiot.”

“You're an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot.”

“In the old days, they put idiots in the village stocks. Now we put them on the Today programme.”

“The new heroism — put a village idiot into a pressure cooker, seal it up tight, and shoot him at the moon.”

““What kind of idiot do you think I am?”
”I have no idea what kind of idiot you are,” Miss Jesczenka said. “That’s why I’m asking.””

“Mechanical instruments, potentially a vehicle of rational human purposes, are scarcely a blessing when they enable the gossip of the village idiot and the deeds of the thug to be broadcast to a million people each day.”

“The village idiots in her bed
Never cared that her eyes were red
Never cared that her brain was dead.
In the hours that her face was alive
It was a thing just to be by her side.”

“Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged. Missing me one place, search another. I stop somewhere waiting for you.”

“I've got two shirts still missing from the Bahamas. I'm sure they are part of a youth camping programme somewhere in Tanzania by now.”

“… there's no such thing as an underwear elf. Even when it goes missing, it's somewhere in the room. So make sure you find it." -- DARK OF NIGHT by Suzanne Brockmann”