Black as night$$$ sweet as sin.

Fat Charlie went back to his hotel room$$$ the colour of underwater$$$ where his lime sat$$$ like a small green Buddha$$$ on the countertop."You're no help$$$" he told the lime. This was unfair. It was only a lime; there was nothing special about it at all. It was doing the best it could.

I'm a mother$$$" said her mother$$$ in her foodless flat where the dust did not dare to settle$$$ "and I know what I know.

Human beings do not like being pushed about by gods. They may seem to$$$ on the surface$$$ but somewhere on the inside$$$ underneath it all$$$ they sense it$$$ and they resent it.

The right song can turn an emperor into a laughingstock$$$ can bring down dynasties.

Anyone who calls you "little lady" has already excluded you from the set of people worth listening to.

Eyes as black and as shiny as chips of obsidian stared back into his. They were eyes like black holes$$$ letting nothing out$$$ not even information.

It is a small world. You do not have to live in it particuarly long to learn that for yourself. There is a theory that$$$ in the whole world$$$ there are only five hundred real people (the cast$$$ as it were; all the rest of the people in the world$$$ the theory suggests$$$ are extras) and what is more$$$ they all know each other. In reality the world is made of thousands upon thousands of groups of about five hundred people$$$ all of whom will spend their lives bumping into each other$$$ trying to avoid each other$$$ and discovering each other in the same unlikely teashop in Vancouver.

Rosies mother was a highly strung bundle of barely thought-through prejudices$$$ worries and feuds.

Up the narrow stairs and into the kitchen. Rosie's mother looked around and made a face as if to indicate that it did not meet her standards of hygiene$$$ containing as it did$$$ edible foodstuffs. "Coffee? Water?" Don't say wax fruit. "Wax fruit?" Damn.