“Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale – to the Jag mobile.”

It’s a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something, but some members of the public are more guilty than others.

And once they start to think about the consequences, they almost always calm down. Unless they’re drunk, of course. Or stoned. Or aged between fourteen and twenty-one. Or Glaswegian.

The clever people at CERN are smashing particles together in the hope that Doctor Who will turn up and tell them to stop

In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.

What do you think you’re doing?

Somebody doesn’t know they’re not in Kansas anymore,’ said Stephanopoulos.

What’s the biggest thing you’ve zapped with a fireball?’ I asked. ‘That would be a tiger,’said Nightingale. ‘Well don’t tell Greenpeace,’ I said. ‘They’re an endagered species.’ ‘Not that sort of tiger,’ said Nightingale. ‘

If you ask any police officer what the worst part of the job is, they will always say breaking bad news to relatives, but this is not the truth.

Are they really gods?” “I never worry about theological questions,” said Nightingale. “They exist, they have power and they can breach the Queen’s peace – that makes them a police matter.

The motto of West African cooking is that if the food doesn’t set fire to the tablecloth the cook is being stingy with the pepper.

It’s a sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind.

My dad was a fairy,” said Zach. “And by that I don’t mean he dressed well and enjoyed musical theatre.

The truth is that at the end of the day, unless you’ve generated some sort of lead, you go home and get on with the important things in life – like drinking and sleeping, and if you’re lucky, a relationship with the gender and sexual orientation of your choice.

What frustrated me was the thought that with three thousand years of history someone in China, some monk in a monastery halfway up a mountain, must have developed a magic kata.

Coffee arrived and the espresso was excellent, like an aromatic electric fence.

This I know for a fact: the reason African women have children is so that there’s someone else to do the housework.

There are no holy places and no holy people, only holy moments, only moments of wisdom.

Salt is white and pure – there is something holy in salt.

For life is holy and every moment is precious.

Who knows, my God, but that the universe is not one vast sea of compassion actually, the veritable holy honey, beneath all this show of personality and cruelty?

Deep in the heart of the infinite darkness, a tiny blue marble is spinning through space. Born in the splendor of God’s holy vision, and sliding away like a tear down his face.

The spirit of the kingdom undermines its defenses. People will rise against the king. A new peace is made; holy laws deteriorate. Paris has never before found herself in such dire straits.

I promise I shall never give up, and that I’ll die yelling and laughing, and that until then I’ll rush around this world I insist is holy and pull at everyone’s lapel and make them confess to me and to all.

Believe in the holy contour of life.