At last, after much effort, there came a prolonged belch from the mud and Larry shot to the surface and we hauled him up the bank. He stood there, covered with the black and stinking slush, looking like a chocolate statue that has come in contact with a blast furnace; he appeared to be melting as we watched.

Oh, Mother, don’t be so old-fashioned,’ Margo said impatiently. ‘After all, you only die once.’ This remark was as baffling as it was true, and successfully silenced Mother.

No one but a murderer would have thought of giving Gerry that albatross.

Larry was designed by Providence to go through life like a small, blond firework, exploding ideas in other people’s minds, and then curling up with catlike unctuousness and refusing to take any blame for the consequences.

The sea lifted smooth blue muscles of wave as it stirred in the dawn-light, and the foam of our wake spread gently behind us like a white peacock’s tail, glinting with bubbles.

The most wonderful, beautiful things in life are the simple things which we have all forgotten.

It has always amazed me that these people who are trying to learn and understand the world around us before it is bulldozed out of existence, have to work on piteously low salaries or on minuscule and precarious grants, while they do one of the most important jobs in the world. For it is only by learning how the planet works that we will see what we are doing wrong and have a chance to save it and ourselves as well.

It was due to this attitude of pomposity that he set the villa on fire. Leslie.

Well,” said Larry with dignity, “it may give you pleasure to be woken at half-past three in the morning by a pigeon who seems intent on pushing his rectum into your eye...

But throughout my life I have rarely if ever achieved what I wanted by tackling it in a logical fashion.