Humans had built a world inside the world, which reflected it in pretty much the same way as a drop of water reflected the landscape. And yet ... and yet ... Inside this little world they had taken pains to put all the things you might think they would want to escape from - hatred, fear, tyranny, and so forth. Death was intrigued. They thought they wanted to be taken out of themselves, and every art humans dreamt up took them further in. He was fascinated.

Chances are where you find them

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

You have the effrontery to be squeamish, it thought at him. But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape – the great face pressed even closer, so that Wonse was staring into the pitiless depths of his eyes – we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.

Banana daiquiris aren't knock-'em-back-by-the-flagon.

I know loads of coppers and dealt with them a lot when I was a journalist - coppers are easy to write for; they tend to run on rails.

Grinning like a necrophiliac in a morgue.