I had never come across a talking cat before, but good manners, as my father used to say, cost nothing.
You’ll also be pleased to know that no resident has been eaten in their sleep here for almost thirty-seven years.
In order to fail, first you have to try.
It was loopholery at its very best.
The dismantling of S0-27 had some peculiar and unforeseen consequences, not least the legalizing of lethal force within libraries “for the maintenance of the collections and public order.” Originally intended as a deterrent to thieves, the legislation quickly became known as the “Shush Law,” when overenthusiastic librarians invoked a “violent intervention” for loud talking. Libraries have never been quieter, and theft and vandalism dropped by 72 percent.
Much that we had appreciated about one another had been left unsaid. In humor, in life and in love, we had understood.
You’re not any of those. But I can’t figure out if you’re a clever person pretending to be thick, a thick person pretending to be clever, or just a chancer stumbling through the Winter without any sort of plan or thought at all.
You’ll know the beginning easily enough; it’s when it all started going weird.
That’s the point about failure,” I said. “It’s an intrinsic part of success. You win some, then you lose some. But with experience and luck, you learn to lose less as the years go on.
Oh, hullo, Worthing,’ he said in a cheery manner. ‘How are things?’ ‘Outlook stormy with a chance of scattered death moving in randomly from all points of the compass.
It was one of those British phrases, along with ‘May I help you?’, that can be either exceedingly polite or hugely aggressive.
Shame is the gateway emotion to increased self-criticism, which leads to realisation, an apology, outrage and eventually meaningful action. We’re not holding our breaths that any appreciable members can be arsed to make the journey along that difficult chain of emotional honesty – many good people get past realisation, only to then get horribly stuck at apology – but we live in hope.
Gregors’, ‘Greggs’ or ‘The Maccy-Gs’ are all rabbit slang for law enforcement agents, named after Mr McGregor, the villain in the Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit books. In the dubbed-into-Rabbity version of Star Wars, Darth Vader is literally translated as ‘Mr McGregor’.
Rabbits never drove fast. They like to enjoy the view, didn’t much care for speed and besides, it was wasteful of fuel. If you want to get somewhere a long way away, just leave early. Days, if that’s required. Or, as Samuel C. Rabbit had it: ‘nhffnfhfiifhfnnffhrhrfhrf’ or ’to travel joyously is better than to arrive.
Humans have a very clear idea about how to behave, and on many occasions actually do. But it’s sometimes disheartening that correct action is drowned out by endless chitter-chatter, designed not to find a way forward but to justify petty jealousies and illogically held prejudices.
We remember David and Catriona Balfour as friends, colleagues, worthy members of our calling, protagonists in Kidnapped and Catriona and for all the booksploring they did – especially finding a way into Barchester, for which we will always be grateful.
The Spontaneous Anthropomorphic Event had taken place before I was born, so rabbits talking, wearing summer dresses or driving cars never seemed that unusual to me.
Prejudice is best lubricated with ignorance.
We are all actors,′ said Connie. ‘Our true feelings and desires hidden behind masks carved from the trammels of accepted social norms. Wouldn’t you say so?
The way we see it, London is just one massive money-laundering scheme attached to an impressive public transport system and a few museums, of which even the most honest has more stolen goods than a lock-up garage in Worcester rented by a guy I know called Chalky.
She was, after all, only a rabbit.