It is always worth itemising happiness, there is so much of the other thing in a life, you had better put down the markers for happiness while you can.

And whatever my life had been up to that day, it was another life after that. And that is the gospel truth.

Because it strikes me there is something greater than judgement. I think it is called mercy.

That is because at the close of the day the ship we sail in is the soul, not the body.

The world begins anew with every birth, my father used to say. He forgot to say, with every death it ends. Or did not think he needed to. Because for a goodly part of his life he worked in a graveyard.

The human animal began as a mere wriggling thing in the ancient seas, struggling out onto land with many regrets. That is what brings us so full of longing to the sea.

I thought if I was going to live a life in this land I was accidentally born on, I must people it; I must have a history. . .. I'm looking for these people inside me, wherever they may be; that is my form of research.