When all else failed, she tried being reasonable.

Making money isn't something to be ashamed of. There's a feeling now that if you have money you must have got it by some kind of shady dealing or being an MP.

It is a mistake trying to cheer up camels. You may as well drop meringues into a black hole.

And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.

Money doesn't buy happiness, Gytha." "I only wanted to rent it for a few weeks!

I know three people who have got better after a brain tumour. I haven't heard of anyone who's got better from Alzheimer's.

Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events -- the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there -- that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous.