“Far too many people—many of them academics, many politicians—continue to jabber about a supposed 'special relationship' between our two countries.I used to think that no such thing existed. Recently, I have become convinced that it does, and that it is in fact a Specially Bad Relationship.”

“Americans may say they love our accents (I have been accused of sounding 'like Princess Di') but the more thoughtful ones resent and rather dislike us as a nation and people, as friends of mine have found out by being on the edge of conversations where Americans assumed no Englishmen were listening.And it is the English, specifically, who are the targets of this. Few Americans have heard of Wales. All of them have heard of Ireland and many of them think they are Irish. Scotland gets a sort of free pass, especially since Braveheart re-established the Scots' anti-English credentials among the ignorant millions who get their history off the TV.”

“British diplomats and Anglo-American types in Washington have a near-superstitious prohibition on uttering the words 'Special Relationship' to describe relations between Britain and America, lest the specialness itself vanish like a phantom at cock-crow.”

“The Registry is a special database in the computer that contains a multitude (literally thousands) of configuration settings used by Windows and many of the programs installed on the computer”

“Is there any point in public debate in a society where hardly anyone has been taught how to think, while millions have been taught what to think?”

“...to many of us prayer is more like talking to a chocolate pudding than participating in an amazing relationship with a living being.”

“However, one thing that grave illness does is to make you examine familiar principles and seemingly reliable sayings. And there's one that I find I am not saying with quite the same conviction as I once used to: In particular, I have slightly stopped issuing the announcement that "whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger."In fact, I now sometimes wonder why I ever thought it profound...In the brute physical world, and the one encompassed by medicine, there are all too many things that could kill you, don't kill you, and then leave you considerably weaker.”