It's hard to explain," said Brutha. "But I think it's got something to do with how people should behave... you should do things because they're right. Not because gods say so. They might say something different another time.

In Genua, someone set out to make dreams come true. Remember some of your dreams?

I just rearrange words into a pleasing order for money.

She'd become a governess. It was one of the few jobs a known lady could do. And she'd taken to it well. She'd sworn that if she did indeed ever find herself dancing on rooftops with chimney sweeps she'd beat herself to death with her own umbrella.

Experience has taught me that you feel better on a flight if you avoid chicken fat in plastic sauce.

Neither of my parents went to church, but they did everything that you needed to do to be Christian. That's something a Quaker would call an intimation of the divine.

He moved on, in the centre of a widening circle. He wasn't an enemy, he was a nemesis.