Rumpole, you must move with the times." "If I don't like the way the times are moving, I shall refuse to accompany them.

There is always time for failure

I'd been told of all the things you're meant to feel when your father dies. Sudden freedom, growing up, the end of dependence, the step into the sunlight when no one is taller than you and you're in no one's shadow. I know what I felt. Lonely.

I had inherited what my father called the art of the advocate, or the irritating habit of looking for the flaw in any argument.

Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The ageing process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.

We don't know much about the human conscience, except that it is soluble in alcohol.

I suppose true sexual equality will come when a general called Anthea is found having an unwise lunch with a young, unreliable model from Spain.