How do you feel?" he asked him. "Like a military academy," said Arthur. "Bits of me keep on passing out.

The kakapo is a bird out of time. If you look one in its large, round, greeny-brown face, it has a look of serenely innocent incomprehension that makes you want to hug it and tell it that everything will be all right, thought you know that it probably will not be.

I'd far rather be happy than right any day.

I wanted to be John Cleese. It took me some time to realise that the job was taken.

The bird that would soar above the plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.

Not unnaturally, many elevators imbued with intelligence and precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process and finally took to squatting in basements sulking. An impoverished hitch-hiker visiting any planets in the Sirius star system these days can pick up easy money working as a counsellor for neurotic elevators.

Listen, three eyes," he said, "don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.