Christ managed to boil down an awful lot of commandments to a few very simple rules for living. It's when you go backwards through the 'begats' and the Garden of Eden, and you start thinking, 'Hang on, that's a big punishment for eating one lousy apple... There's a human-rights issue.'

When they're standing right in front of you, kings are a kind of speech impediment.

Priests were metal-reinforced overshoes. They saved your soles. This is an Assassin joke.

Sybil's female forebears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around the little gold chocolates while trolls were trying to break into the compound, or had merely stayed at home and nursed such bits of husbands and sons as made it back from endless little wars. The result was a species of woman who, when duty called, turned into solid steel.

The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays.

Shoes, men, coffins; never accept the first one you see.

Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.