“Then when the fugitive word was least expecting it I would suddenly turn the full blaze of my attention back onto it catching the culprit in the beam of my mental torch before it could sneak off again into the darkness.”

To be most effective, flattery is always best applied with a trowel.

One of the marks of a truly great mind, I had discovered, is the ability to feign stupidity on demand.

Although it is pleasant to think about poison at any season, there is something special about Christmas, and I found myself grinning.

Whenever I’m with other people, part of me shrinks a little. Only when I am alone can I fully enjoy my own company.

To be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren’s hands.

I always knew that I wanted to work on my own material – something that would be more long-lasting than short-lived electronic transmissions.

I had long ago discovered that when a word or formula refused to come to mind the best thing for it was to think of something else: tigers for instance or oatmeal.

And I had long ago become accustomed to being called ‘Ophelia Daphne Flavia, damn it.

It is not unknown for fathers with a brace of daughters to reel off their names in order of birth when summoning the youngest.

I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books.

I’m at that age where I watch such things with two minds.

My grandmother flew only once in her life, and that was the day she and her new husband ascended into the skies of Victorian London in the wicker basket of a hot-air balloon.

Compared with my life Cinderella was a spoiled brat.

I fling myself down on my back, throw my arms and legs out so that I look like an asterisk, and gaze at the sky.

TV and film taught me to think cinematically. Teaching others to edit, for example, provides a great deal of insight into the millions of ways in which given elements can be put together to tell a story.

What intrigued me more than anything else was finding out the way in which everything, all of creation.

if you had your mother at your back, you’d be okay. Some deep-rooted part of you would know you were loved. That you deserved to be loved.

On a day when these things shall be heated in hell-fire, and their foreheads, and their sides, and their backs shall be branded therewith.

Rebirth. I mean by this simply what happens when the child begins to realise the fact that the black does not enter through the white’s front door is not in the same category as the fact that the dead will never come back.

You don’t have that fear. So why do you think people get stuck in those boxes? It’s that fear of going back down.

I failed so many times and got back up. I got through the toughest times with my family, but I’m still standing.

That was a good fight back in the gym, he said. But i think you could benefit from a few more boxing lessons.

I’ll be firm,” i promised patch, adopting a no-nonsense expression. “no backing down.” by now patch was full-on grinning. He kissed me again, and i felt my mouth soften its resolve. “you look cute when you’re trying to be tough,” he said.

I hope we don’t have to keep going back over the same territory and winning the same rights over and over again. The battle for birth control. The battle for abortion.