There were a few quotes which were on my mind when I was writing the story which just ended (The School Murder Case).

The first one is easy to spot, since it's the first line in the story ("The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound."). That's from The Importance of Being Earnest.

I should explain that when Jan Sleet quotes, as she does from time to time, it's her doing the quoting, not me. For example, this is true when she quotes Sherlock Holmes in her first appearance, in A Sane Woman, when her first words are, "Come, Marshall, the game's afoot!" She also quotes Holmes in this story when she refers to "the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime" (from the story "Silver Blaze"), and in the third novel, where she refers to Marshall's "experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents," which is what Holmes said about Watson. Oh, and in the Return to U-town chapter, when she comments that Perry is developing "a certain unexpected vein of pawky humor."

It's also obvious here that she reads Nero Wolfe when Marshall says, "This was, as my employer would have called it, flummery..." since "flummery" is one of Wolfe's favorite words.

Her reading is obviously not limited to mystery novels, since she also paraphrases Gandalf, from The Lord of the Rings, in this segment:

"In any case," she continued, "I don't think that's the solution. Does she deserve death, for what she's done? Perhaps. Many who live deserve death. Do her victims, or at least some of them, deserve life? Probably, but we can't give it to them, no matter how much we might think they got a raw deal. So, if you can't restore life to the dead, don't be too eager to deal out death in judgment to the living."

This thought is completed later in the story, when she says, "Even starling may have a part to play, before the end."

There's also one reference which may not be deliberate. This is when Jan Sleet says, "...we go to some dangerous places, and dressing well can give people the impression that there might be a price to pay for torturing or killing you." This is similar to William S. Burroughs' explanation for the way he dressed (always like a conservative banker, even when consorting with drug addicts, criminals, and fellow homosexuals in various remote parts of the world). He said that it was always important to make it clear that you were not a member of "the torturable class." I'm not sure Jan Sleet would have spent a lot of time reading Burroughs, so it may just be that they came to the same conclusion in similar circumstances.

There were also two quotes which were on my mind, though they were not included in the story itself. One is from Philo Vance, though I don't remember which book it's from:

"If society were omniscient, it would have a right to sit in judgment. But society is ignorant and venomous, devoid of any trace of insight or understanding. It exalts knavery, and worships stupidity. It crucifies the intelligent, and puts the diseased in dungeons. And, withal, it arrogates to itself the right and ability to analyze the subtle sources of what it calls 'crime,' and to condemn to death all persons whose inborn and irresistible impulses it does not like. That's your sweet society – a pack of wolves watering at the mouth for victims on whom to vent its organized lust to kill and flay."

And the other is from Sapphire and Steel, when they visit a school:

Steel: "Is this really what they do with their young?"

Sapphire: "You don't approve?"

Steel: "Little wonder they turn out how they do."