“This was cheering. The real world was still there, it still contained puppies being puppies and cats being cats.”

“If I ever saw my muse she would be an old woman with a tight bun and spectacles poking me in the middle of the back and growling, "Wake up and write the book!”

“Oh wondrous,' murmured Lin Chung. 'Oh, water, mistress of earth, valley spirit, eternal feminine!''Taoism again?' Phryne leaned close to hear what he was whispering.'From the "Tao Te Ching." The old Master should have seen this. All made by water, the female, cold, moon principle.''Yin,' said Phryne. 'This is the womb of the earth.''Indeed.' He took her hand. 'Completely foreign to all male, hot, sun creatures.''Like you?''Like me. Yang can only admire and tremble.''Come along.' She led him into the centre of the huge space. 'We don't want to get lost in the earthmother's insides.”

“This was cheering. The real world was still there, it still contained puppies being puppies and cats being cats.”

“Even the reeking dark in the lion's cage seemed precious and infinitely preferable to whatever lay beyond. She would go out like the flame of a candle. Where does the candle flame go when the candle is blown out?She laid her painted face against the iron bars and bared her teeth at death.”

“He could pass off the inferior bottles on tables seven and four. Table seven knew nothing of wine, sending back a bottle of Riesling as "corked" because it had bits of cork in it, the imbeciles. Table four had gulped down a very special old pale brandy as though it was common wood alcohol, which was probably what they had been drinking because they had said that his brandy lacked bite. They deserved inferior burgundy. The bottles that had been stored too close to the stove might have enough bite by now for table four. A wine waiter's revenge may be long in coming, but it arrives in the end.”

“The Albion was a spacious pub, built in the days when a public house with any pretensions to gentility had to have fourteen foot ceilings, brass taps and a polished wooden bar you skate down. ... Bert, in his reflective moments, considered that if heaven didn't have a well-appointed pub where a man could sit down over a beer for a yarn with the other angels, then he didn't want to go there.”

“First, a bath. I'm feeling soiled. Too much contact with cold reality, I think.”