“Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery.”

“Getting struck by lightning is like winning the lottery, except of course, not as lucky.”

“She was staying. A little longer.V smiled to himself. So this was what winning the lottery felt like.”

“The top 10 per cent of the US population appropriated 91 per cent of income growth between 1989 and 2006, while the top 1 per cent took 59 per cent.”

“After all, your chances of winning a lottery and of affecting an election are pretty similar. From a financial perspective, playing the lottery is a bad investment. But it's fun and relatively cheap: for the price of a ticket, you buy the right to fantasize how you'd spend the winnings - much as you get to fantasize that your vote will have some impact on policy.”

“I'll admit that the idea of being adored for nothing but my face and my body has had an occasional appeal, in the way winning the lottery does. The difference is that I have a much better chance of winning the lottery.”