Ian Rankin

...trapped in limbo, believing in a lack of belief, but not necessarily lacking the belief to believe.

And little girls went to charm schools. Now you've all got degrees from the University of Sarcasm.

You wouldn't think you could kill an ocean, would you? But we'll do it one day. That's how negligent we are.

Hardship bred a bitter, quickfire humour and resilience to all but the most terminal of life's tragedies.

War created bizarre allies, while peace itself could be divisive.

What happens to sanity when you chain it to a wall?

This man had something to hide, some shame in his past, and those with a past can always be bought.

Witches never existed, except in people__ minds. All there was in the olden days was women and some men who believed in herbal cures and in folklore and in the wish to fly. Witches? We__e all witches in one way or another. Witches was the invention of mankind, son. We__e all witches beneath the skin.

The man nodded and brought a bottle from the glass-fronted fridge,

This was the winter of 2008/9. Work was ongoing to reinstate a tram system in the city. A lot of people couldn__ see the point of trams and many more disliked the disruption. Streets were closed off. There was almost a sense of __partheid_ as the roadworks made it difficult to move from New Town to Old Town and vice versa. Added to which, the weather was fairly grim. And the banks looked ready to implode.

It was the laughter of birthdays, of money found in an old pocket.

My father was a slave to capitalist ideology. He didn't know what he was doing.""You mean you went to an expensive school?

From this height the sleeping city seems like a child's construction, a model which has refused to be constrained by imagination. The volcanic plug might be black Plasticine, the castle balanced solidly atop it a skewed rendition of crenellated building bricks. The orange street lamps are crumpled toffee-wrappers glued to lollipop sticks.