The universe contains any amount of horrible ways to be woken up, such as the noise of the mob breaking down the front door, the scream of fire engines, or the realization that today is the Monday which on Friday night was a comfortably long way off. A dog's wet nose is not strictly speaking the worst of the bunch, but it has it's own peculiar dreadfulness which connoisseurs of the ghastly and dog owners everywhere have come to know and dread. It's like having a small piece of defrosting liver pressed lovingly against you.

Rumour is information distilled so finely that it can filter through anything. It does not need doors and windows -- sometimes it does not need people. It can exist free and wild, running from ear to ear without ever touching lips.

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

The brain works fast when it thinks it’s about to be cut in half.

It's either because of the number of times the scholar puts the boot into Peter Jackson the director of The Lord of the Rings films or is making a point they have never heard of.

This book had two authors, and they were both the same person.

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.