What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust

Characters in fiction must remain believable. It is not so in real life.

The greatest minds in the world are often cranky when they first awaken in the morning, and mine is no exception.

Even Justice has its victims," he said. "And they are sometimes more greatly wronged than even the victims of crime." "I shall have to think about that," I said. I felt as if my brain had had the wind knocked out of it. "We all need to think about that," Dogger said.

There's only one way to deal with a persistent pest, which is to remain perfectly silent. Silence is more effective that a thousand swear words.

It's always embarrassing when someone steps over that invisible line and into your private life. Even though they mean well, the line has been broken, and can never again be the impenetrable defense that it once was.

The instant you become a woman, you become a captive. You are sucked up into that mysterious state that, like a person seen across a lawn through drifting smoke, is partly real and partly vapor. I had seen it happening to Feely and her friends, and it scared me almost to witlessness.

To my mind, tea for one is infinitely more enjoyable. Just me and a steaming cap of tannic acid.

Truth is like nitroglycerine. It must be handled with kid gloves.

The making of a pot of tea is a blessing,” Father once told me in a rare moment of revealing his thoughts. “A blessing upon both the one who prepares it and those who drink it. A small sacrament, to be sure, but it must never be done frivolously or unthinkingly.

I found myself gaping at the man in the yellowing photo who was so soon to become a corpse. There's something weirdly magnetic about knowing such a thing. It forms an instant and invisible bond: a secret kind of love—and perhaps even forgiveness.

That was another thing that I loved about Dogger. He was easy to take leave of. You didn't have to invent any elaborate goodbyes or polite conclusions. You simply took to your heels, and that was what I did.

It means that when you know a person's name, you have very great power over them. Very great, very deep power: power even at a cellular level. Or so some believe.

In the words of that excellent Franciscan philosopher John Punch, ‘Things are not to be multiplied without necessity.’

Even the mildest irritation, sheltered, guarded, and fed, can grow into an immense and sometimes sudden rage.

The kitchen, by contrast, was as surprisingly bright as a painting by Vermeer.

There was a doorway on the right with the stenciled sign in ominous red letters saying, “positively no admittance”. I smiled at the arrogance of it. Since when had I ever been stopped by a mere sign? To my mind, a sign is, well, a sign of laziness. If it isn't important enough to have a human enforcer, it isn't important enough to obey. A few dabs of paint don't cut any ice with me. I tried the knob and praise be to all the saints and all the martyrs and all the angels, even the fallen ones. The door swung open and I stepped inside.

At the time, I had wondered why those things with the most power were so often in the most plain packages. The Holy Bible, for instance: traditionally black.

If you wish to be noted for truthfulness

I almost bit through my lip to keep from swearing.

Appearance is nothing among friends and a runny nose is like gold in the bank.

I was beginning to learn that when you’re bereaved, as I have been, you live in a shattered looking-glass world.

She was so beautiful she sucked all the light out of the room and made it come back out of ’er face and ’er ’air.