Everything comes to an end. A good bottle of wine, a summer’s day, a long-running sitcom, one’s life, and eventually our species. The question for many of us is not that everything will come to an end but when. And can we do anything vaguely useful until it does?

Sometimes choice is a luxury that fate does not afford us.

If you even think about asking Harry Potter for an autograph, your day ends right now.

You many have noticed I have a temper ... but when I calmed down, I realized that this world, blighted and imperfect as it is, would be better with you in it.

Because there's someone else here in East Carmin. Someone hopelessly unsuitable. It's all a really bad idea and will lead to trouble of the worst sort. But no matter what, every minute in her presence makes my life a minute more complete.

Maybe those sorts of yes-or-no life-and-death decisions are easier to make because they are so black and white. I can cope with them because it's easier. Human emotions, well. . .they're just a fathomless collection of grays and I don't do so well on the midtones.

Acceptable rules of conduct were suspended when it came to the spoon shortage. The deficit had gotten so bad that prices were all but unaffordable, and dynastic spoon succession had become a matter of considerable interest. Spoons were even postcode engraved and carried on one's person to eliminate theft, and good table manners, one of the eight pillars upon which the Collective was built, had been relaxed to allow tea to be stirred - shockingly - with the handle of a fork.