Well. That's helpful. We'll put an APB out on the Gingerbread Man. I'm not hopeful it'll do us much good, though. Word on the street is you can't catch him.

Men, she thought, were one of the world's few sure comforts, like a fire on a cold October night, like cocoa, like broken-in-slippers. Their clumsy affections, their bristly faces, and their willingness to do what needed to be done - cook an omelette, change lightbulbs, make with hugging - sometimes almost made being a woman fun.

What a blessed if painful thing, this business of being alive.

Who knows what may lie around the next corner? There may be a window somewhere ahead. It may look out on a field of sunflowers.

He paused, twisting his goatee, considering the law in Deuteronomy that forbade clothes with mixed fibers. A problematic bit of Scripture. A matter that required thought. "Only the devil wants man to have a wide range of lightweight and comfortable styles to choose from," he murmured at last, trying out a new proverb. "Although there may be no forgiveness for polyester. On this one matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement.

She liked things that had been written by people who had lived short, ugly, and tragic lives. Or, who at least, were English.

The blood of a redheaded woman is three degrees cooler than the blood of a normal woman. This has been established by medical studies.