Some mysteries are simply irresistible,” she said. “They have components that alter a life.

Roman influence seeds itself, sprouting mighty oaks right through the modern forest of computers, digital disks, microviruses and space satellites.

It's so easy to persecute an older, overweight, unwise, crude, ignorant woman who may very well be a good person at heart who has achieved a great deal in her life. So easy to vilify her and hate her and try to destroy her life. Woe to anyone today who is not slender, young, clever and politically correct.

How can so much beauty hide such a bruised and steely heart, and why must I love him, why must I lean in my weariness upon his irresistible yet indomitable strength? Is he not the wizend funeral spirit of a dead man in a child's clothes?

None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.

God, what is it like to be You and hear all those people all the time everywhere, begging, imploring, calling out for anything and anyone?

Dickens is a very underrated writer at the moment. Everyone in his time admired him but I think right now he's not spoken of enough.