“The minutes ticked past. This is why peelers need a book.”

The chip-pan fire was by far the most popular method these Proddies had for burning their houses down.

Human beings are pattern-seeking animals. It’s part of our DNA. That’s why conspiracy theories and gods are so popular: we always look for the wider, bigger explanations for things.

The second technique was the ever popular chimney fire and number three had to be the drunken cigarette drop on the carpet.

A wee paperback to stick in your pocket.

Mind you, why they’d be cooking chips at this hour was anyone’s guess.

Drawing Dead is a brilliant noir from one of Australia’s most exciting new novelists.

I would willingly stand at street corners, hat in hand, begging passerby to drop their unused minutes into it.

How can I regain even for a minute the feeling of ample leisure I had during my early, my creative years? Then I seldom felt fussed, or hurried.

The fame of an actor is won in minutes and seconds, not in years.

I thought, “Wait a minute. That’s the perfect name.” That kind of freed up my year but that’s where the name came from.

If all we are allowed is hours, minutes, I want to be able to etch each of them on to my memory with exquisite clarity so that I can recall them at moments like this, when my very soul feels blackened.

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions – the little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.

And to be stolen away from ourselves by Art is a momentary relaxation from that itching, a minute’s profound, and as it were secret, enfranchisement.

In the future, everybody will be anonymous for 15 minutes.