As Agatha Swanburne once said, 'To be kept waiting is unfortunate, but to be kept waiting with nothing interesting to read is a tragedy of Greek proportions.

Nowadays, people resort to all kinds of activities in order to calm themselves after a stressful event: performing yoga poses in a sauna, leaping off bridges while tied to a bungee, killing imaginary zombies with imaginary weapons, and so forth. But in Miss Penelope Lumley's day, it was universally understood that there is nothing like a nice cup of tea to settle one's nerves in the aftermath of an adventure- a practice many would find well worth reviving.

Nothing good was ever learned from eavesdropping, so mind your business and let others mind theirs.

All books are judged by their covers until they are read.

One of my recent acquisitions. It is called a medicine bag, from one of the native tribes of North America. A fascinating people, highly skilled in the use of plants' power. They too understand nature's essence as divine. So much so that they do not think it is man's place to own the land at all. Imagine that - think of all the wars we would have missed!

As Agatha Swanburne once said, 'To be kept waiting is unfortunate, but to be kept waiting with nothing interesting to read is a tragedy of Greek proportions.

Plants make the air! Do you understand what that means? Our food, our air, our very lives come from the plants. How could they not be of divine origin, of divine intelligence? How can we deny that, in some essential way, they are no less than you or I?