Esk felt that bravery was called for, but on a night like this bravery lasted only as long as a candle stayed alight.

Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god's idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.

Would a minute have mattered? No, probably not, although his young son appeared to have a very accurate internal clock. Possibly even 2 minutes would be okay. Three minutes, even. You could go to five minutes, perhaps. But that was just it. If you could go for five minutes, then you'd go to ten, then half an hour, a couple of hours...and not see your son all evening. So that was that. Six o'clock, prompt. Every day. Read to young Sam. No excuses. He'd promised himself that. No excuses. No excuses at all. Once you had a good excuse, you opened the door to bad excuses.

Why bother with a cunning plan when a simple one will do?

If I were you, I'd sue my face for slander.

Chain-mail isn't much defence against an arrow. It certainly isn't when the arrow is being aimed between your eyes.

Every procedure for getting a cat to take a pill works fine - once. Like the Borg, they learn.