“As soon as Mr. Prosser realized that he was substantially the loser after all, it was as if a weight lifted itself off his shoulders: this was more like the world as he knew it.”

“The best way to lighten your mood is to lift the weight of the world off of your shoulders.”

“Mr L Prosser was, as they say, only human. In other words he was a carbon-based life form descended from an ape. More specifically he was forty, fat and shabby and worked for the local council. Curiously enough, though he didn't know it, he was also a direct male-line descendant of Genghis Khan, though intervening generations and racial mixing had so juggled his genes that he had no discernible Mongoloid characteristics, and the only vestiges left in Mr L Prosser of his mighty ancestry were a pronounced stoutness about the tum and a predilection for little fur hats.”

“He lifted the violin to his shoulder then, and raised the bow. And he played.”

“Jesus, she was turned-on by his spanking. He should have realized. After everything they'd done Friday night, he knew her taste for sexual adventure more than matched his.”

“He realized that he was manacled hand and foot with fetters that were only more intolerable because they consisted of nothing more substantial than the dread of causing pain.”