“what at first had seemed to be no more than a small bump in the road was turned into a full-scale misfortune”

“All this, this luck – what did it mean? Coming so suddenly, and on such a scale, it was as baffling as a misfortune.”

“Tibb has admonished me to be careful which road I walked, but in truth no road was simple, straightforward, or, indeed, what it appeared to be at first glimpse. Every path was tricksy, full of turns and twists and blind corners with God-only-knew-what dangers lurching round the bend.”

“Set backs are bumps in the road, they are not the end of the roads.”

“Happiness--a small-scale, endearing, harmonious happiness--surely dwelt here beneath the low-powered lamps in the tiny rooms of these houses. A small-scale happiness and a modest harmony: let a man cry out, let him rage, let him howl with grief with all the power of which he was capable, what more than these could he ever hope to gain in this life?”

“Next he grabs a round yellow thing covered in small bumps. It looks like a strange fruit and I half expect him to squeeze it to produce juice. When it reaches shoulder height the small bumps explode, turning into razor-sharp spikes. I duck and roll in BK's direction to avoid getting impaled."What the hell?" I shout. "You could have warned me! This is the second time in less than five minutes that you've almost killed me.”