“Once again, Caddrick had failed to use the few brains God had given him.”

“Give as few orders as possible," his father had told him once long ago. "Once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject.”

“If the gods had intended for people to vote, they would have given us candidates.”

“He would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no flies.”

“I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.”

“Surely we all know scores of professional men and women who, apart from their professional concerns, seem not to have enough brains to butter a biscuit. They probably had intelligence once. But when their university had given them its blessing, they thought that enough had been done for one lifetime.”

“The promise had not failed her.... She had won everything from life, for she had given the world a master. Words seemed to speak themselves in her ear.... "Bethink you of the blessedness. Every wife is like the Mother of God and has the hope of bearing a saviour of mankind."”

“Truly England and the church of God hath had a great favour from the Lord, in this great victory given us.”

“He had waked her; he had given her what she lacked, and what few men could have given her: the sense of peril, which is the root of love.”

“He had once felt light on the ground. He used to think his life was an open-ended adventure, he used to give things away, it amused him when the unexpected happened, benevolent coincidences used to bear him along. When had all that stopped?”