The nanny seemed to be extinct until 1975, when, like the coelacanth, she suddenly and unexpectedly reappeared in the shape of Margaret Thatcher.

I know of no wars started by anyone to impose lack of religion on someone else.

Fish have water, the bushmen of the Kalahari have sand, and Houstonians have interior décor.

I know of no wars started by anyone to impose lack of religion on someone else. We have lethal Sunni v Shia, Catholic against Protestant, but no agnostic suicide bombers attack crowded atheist pubs.

The formal Washington dinner party has all the spontaneity of a Japanese imperial funeral.

A British lawyer would like to think of himself as part of that mysterious entity called The Law; an American lawyer would like a swimming pool and two houses.

While it is entirely untrue that Canadians lack a sense of humour, the funniest ones tend to head south: Dan Aykroyd, Jim Carrey, Michael J. Fox.

Living in New York is like being at some terrible late-night party. You're tired, you've had a headache since you arrived, but you can't leave because then you'd miss the party.

I've served on five different juries, and many of them were bonkers in their own way.

Most successful American politicians look well-fed on endorsements, campaign contributions and chicken dinners.

Canada is not so much a country as a clothesline nearly 4,000 miles long. St John's in Newfoundland is closer to Milan, Italy than to Vancouver.

I don’t kill children, ” she said. “Not even when it’s the right thing to do.

I doubted myself, and that made me doubt you. But you weren’t the problem. You were never the problem. I should have trusted you, but I didn’t, because I couldn’t trust myself.

the ignobility of thought and action that desperation born of indigence produces.

I have an obligation to try to live as long as I can for my family.

I think I'd struggle to get excited by synchronised swimming.

We only get one planet.

Let your holy Angel have charge concerning us, that the wicked one have no power over us.

I would say I spend about an hour a day cleansing and moisturising after all of the make-up I've worn on jobs, and on weekends I tend to go bare-faced to give my skin a bit of a break.

Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin; and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task.

Love can be angry... with a kind of anger in which there is no gall, like the dove's and not the ravens.