Knowing how bad you could be is a great encouragement to being good.

Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often students, for heaven's sake.

Adventure! People talked about the idea as if it were something worthwhile, rather than a mess of bad food, no sleep and strange people inexplicably trying to stick pointed objects in bits of you.

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.

If the government ever imposes a tax on books - and I wouldn't put it past them - I'm in dead trouble.

Actors, said Granny, witheringly. As if the world weren't full of enough history without inventing more.

She'd stopped reading the kind of women's magazine that talked about romance and knitting and started reading the kind of women's magazine that talked about orgasms, but apart from making a mental note to have one if ever the occasion presented itsel