“Problems are like top trumps. I have a pretty good card: Adulterous Mum. But Jordana's is still better: Tumour Mother.”

“Top Trumps appeared to be a game in which you got cards, and the cards had a picture (in this case, of a horse), and told you all kinds of stats for that horse, how fast it was, how big it was, etc. Whoever had the better horse won both the cards. You repeated this until someone had all the cards. So, basically it was exactly like high school, except it only took three minutes. Which was really a bit more humane, if you thought about it.”

“.'If things get on top of you', my mum always used to say, 'have a good cry.'.”

“If you meet directly with tough sledding circumstance, play your trump card to turn up trumps and live in comfortable circumstances.”

“Horrors from beyond the veil of time and space are coming to eat us so shut up, sounds like a pretty good draw card for a leader to have.”

“It’s said that the shuffling of the cards is the earth, and the pattering of the cards is the rain, and the beating of the cards is the wind, and the pointing of the cards is the fire. That’s of the four suits. But the Greater Trumps, it’s said, are the meaning of all process and the measure of the everlasting dance.”