“Plus laid aussi qu'un parking”

“Allez-vous au plus vite - crac ! Oh, désolé, laissez-moi vous mettre une attelle, monsieur.”

“Rayner avait sans doute une dizaine d'années de plus que moi. Ce qui ne pose en soi aucun problème. J'entretiens des relations chaleureuses, sans bras cassés, avec quantité de personnes de cet âge.”

“Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we've passed. Or a month, it makes no difference. So unless we're going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes.”

“People talk about nightfall, or night falling, or dusk falling, and it’s never seemed right to me. Perhaps they once meant befalling. As in night befalls. As in night happens. Perhaps they, whoever they were, thought of a falling sun. That might be it, except that that ought to give us dayfall. Day fell on Rupert the Bear. And we know, if we’ve ever read a book, that day doesn’t fall or rise. It breaks. In books, day breaks, and night falls.In life, night rises from the ground. The day hangs on for as long as it can, bright and eager, absolutely and positively the last guest to leave the party, while the ground darkens, oozing night around your ankles, swallowing for ever that dropped contact lens, making you miss that low catch in the gully on the last ball of the last over.”

“Happiness is the twinkle in your grandmother's eye as you reverse the tractor off her legs.”

“I never was someone who was at ease with happiness. ”