“My father had coats the way old spinsters have cats.”

“My fur coat is still wet, not from the rain, but from where my cat was licking it. Well, my future fur coat. I have yet to kill and skin it.”

“Not me, of course, as I am now officially a spinster librarian and must stay home with my cat and drink tea.”

“There's more than one way to skin a cat, my father used to say; it bothered me, I didn't see why they would want to skin a cat even one way.”

“He’s my cat! He’s not God’s cat! Let God have his own cat! Let God have all the damn old cats He wants, and kill them all! Church is mine!”

“It was an excellent coat. It was long, grey, suspiciously blotched, smelt faintly of dust and old curries, went all the way down to my knees and overhung my wrists even when I stretched out my arms. It had big, smelly pockets, crunchy with crumbs, it boasted the remnants of a waterproof sheen, was missing a few buttons, and had once been beige. It was the coat that detectives down the ages had worn while trailing a beautiful, dangerous, presumably blond suspect in the rain, the coat that no one noticed, shapeless, bland and grey - it suited my purpose perfectly.”