“My friend Simon managed only sixteen of the seventeen League games - he smashed his head on a bookshelf in London a few hours before the Grimsby game on the 28th of Decemebr; his girlfriend had to take his car keys away from him because he kept making dazed attempts to drive from Fulham up to the Abbey.”

“Someone told me the delightful story of the crusader who put a chastity belt on his wife and gave the key to his best friend for safekeeping, in case of his death. He had ridden only a few miles away when his friend, riding hard, caught up with him, saying 'You gave me the wrong key!”

“Caeden grabbed my hand and grinned like a little boy in a candy shop. “Carnival time!” He drug me from the car and then behind him as he headed to a ring toss game. “I think I need to win my girl a prize,” he said.I laughed.“What?” he shrugged. “It’s like a rite of passage. Every boyfriend has to win his girlfriend a prize,” he winked, turning my stomach to jelly.”

“He could not play the game without hope; could not play the game without a dream. They had taken it all away from him now, they had turned away from him and there was nothing for him now...He was alone and there was nothing for him.”

“They were the reason that he kept faith with his stars, that reinforced him in his belief that the universe had more in store for him than the mug's game of working for a modest salary until he retired or died,”

“On a strange and devious way, Siddhartha had gotten into this final and most base of all dependencies, by means of the game of dice. It was since that time, when he had stopped being a Samana in his heart, that Siddhartha began to play the game for money and precious things, which he at other times only joined with a smile and casually as a custom of the childlike people, with an increasing rage and passion. He was a feared gambler, few dared to take him on, so high and audacious were his stakes. He played the game due to a pain of his heart, losing and wasting his wretched money in the game brought him an angry joy, in no other way he could demonstrate his disdain for wealth, the merchants' false god, more clearly and more mockingly.”