Minor Quotes & Sayings

If I'm interrupted, it's just a minor inconvenience, but not a disaster, because it's easy to get back where I was: that is, the paint has not changed consistency; the light has not moved. — Buffy Sainte-Marie

Susan sighed. And you had to remember that Time probably wasn't time, in the same way that Death wasn't exactly the same as death and War wasn't exactly the same as war. She'd met War, a big fat man with an inappropriate sense of humor and a habit of repeating himself, and he certainly didn't personally attend every minor fracas. She disliked Pestilence, who gave her funny looks, and Famine was just wasted and weird. None of them ran their ... call it their discipline. They personified it. — Anonymous

There is no doubt that Bronstein's shrewd understanding of chess psychology was crucial to his success. Without it, his impetuous style and technical flaws might have relegated him to a minor career. — Pal Benko

For just as the Milesians believed in Oracles, Malesians believed in Bomohs. Malesian Bomohs or Dukuns, just as the Sibyls, went into convulsions or ecstatic trances to proclaim the wishes of the Gods. But Malesian Bomohs did more. They claimed to be able to capture Spirits which they kept as pets. And these pet spirits could be sold or hired out to clients, to perform minor supernatural feats or miracles.[MMT] — Nicholas Chong

I'm a bluesman, which means that I put an emphasis on the minor keys. — Cornel West

It is worth it to leave behing my minor life for grander maybes
-Miles Pudge — John Green

As we are all solipsists, and all die, the world dies with us. Only very minor literature aims at apocalypse. — Anthony Burgess

By extrapolating a little from Freud, it becomes possible to think of nationalism as a kind of narcissism. A nationalist takes the neutral facts about a people - their language, habitat, culture, tradition and history- and turns these facts into a narrative, whose purpose is to illuminate the self-consciousness of a group, to enable them to think of themselves as a nation with a claim to self-determination. A nationalist, in other words, takes "minor differences"- indifferent in themselves- and transforms them into major differences. For this purpose, traditions are invented, a glorious past is gilded and refurbished for public consumption, and a people who might not have thought of themselves as a people at all suddenly begin to dream of themselves as a nation. — Michael Ignatieff

Our intuitions, as humans, aren't always very good. Changes that happen really suddenly, on the strength of the most minor of input, can be deeply confusing. — Malcolm Gladwell

100% Reason to remember the name. — Fort Minor

I have a secret. A big, fat, hairy secret. And I'm not talking minor-league stuff, like I once let Joseph Applebaum feel me up behind the seventh-grade stairwell or I got a Brazilian wax after work last Friday or I'm hiding a neon blue vibrator called the Electric Slide in my night table. Which I'm not, by the way. In case you were wondering. — Karen MacInerney

WHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

Ah. I see we are now into the second movement of the Nakamura Suite in G-Minor! — Kevin Sylvester

'Blind Curve,' the book I'm working on now, sprang from a crazy incident that happened to me last year while on my book tour. I was pulled out of my car for a minor traffic violation - an incident that escalated into my being thrown into cuffs and told I was going to jail. Except in my story, the hero doesn't get off as easily as I did. — Andrew Gross

It was difficult being a teacher and out of the closet in the '50s. By the time I retired, the English department was proud of having a gay poet of a certain minor fame. It was a very satisfactory change! — Thom Gunn

I've been sent down to the minor leagues six or seven times in my career. You've just got to have that stability. It's huge. It's comforting. And it's reassuring. To be part of something in this world that's constantly changing like baseball, it's awesome to have your hope anchored in something that's so stable. — Matt Diaz

I had been reading children's books all my life and saw them not as minor amusements but as part of the whole literary mainstream; not as "juveniles" or "kiddie lit," one of the most demeaning terms in the scholastic jargon.
My belief was, and is, that the child's book is a unique and valid art form; a means of dealing with things which cannot be dealt with quite as well in any other way. There is, I'm convinced, no inner, qualitative difference between writing for adults and writing for children. The raw materials are the same for both: the human condition and our response to it. — Lloyd Alexander

We're not playing some minor game in Scientology. It isn't cute or something to do for lack of something better. The whole agonized future of this planet, every Man, Woman and Child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology. — L. Ron Hubbard

Once his wife goes to sleep it takes a minor nuclear explosion to wake her. — Tony Blair

Poetry is more valuable than cricket, but Bradman would be a fool if he sacrificed his cricket in order to write second-rate minor poetry (and I suppose that it is unlikely that he could do better). — G.H. Hardy

There are bands that I got into when I was 15, when I was mad at my dad and just wanted to be different. I don't think I'd give those bands half a chance now. But I hold some kind of nostalgia for them that I won't let go. Bands like Minor Threat and Black Flag. — Pete Wentz

Typography is a minor technicality of civilized life. — Stanley Morison

Students were taught by doing. — Minor White

Character is developed one positive action at a time. Therefore nothing is actually trivial in our lives. To grow in character development, pay attention to seemingly trivial matters. Someone who grows from each minor life event will eventually reach high levels of character perfection. — Zelig Pliskin

That was my pride and joy - that I made it through all those years of minor hockey without losing any of my teeth; then, I ended up losing them in a car accident in New York when I was riding in a taxi. So, I end up losing my teeth, but not in the glamorous fashion I envisioned. — Tom Glavine

A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot. — Robert A. Heinlein

Where would David Copperfield be if Dickens had gone to writing classes? Probably about seventy minor characters short, is where. (Did you know that Dickens is estimated to have invented thirteen thousand characters? Thirteen thousand! The population of a small town!) — Nick Hornby

At first he had appreciated only the material quality of the sounds which those instruments secreted. And it had been a source of keen pleasure when, below the narrow ribbon the violin part, delicate, unyielding, substantial and governing the whole, he had suddenly perceived, where it was trying to surge upwards in a flowing tide of sound, the mass of the piano-part, multiform, coherent, level, and breaking everywhere in melody like the deep blue tumult of the sea, silvered and charmed into a minor key by the moonlight. But at a given moment, without being able to distinguish any clear outline, or to give a name to what was pleasing him, suddenly enraptured, he had tried to collect, to treasure in his memory the phrase or harmony - he knew not which - that had just been played, and had opened and expanded his soul, just as the fragrance of certain roses, wafted upon the moist air of evening, has the power of dilating our nostrils. — Marcel Proust

How easy it is for generous sentiments, high courtesy, and chivalrous courage to lose their influence beneath the chilling blight of selfishness, and to exhibit to the world a man who was great in all the minor attributes of character, but who was found wanting when it became necessary to prove how much principle is superior to policy. — James F. Cooper

The vampire blood running around in their systems isn't natural, so whenever Henry or Grace get a cut, no matter how minor, their bodies can't produce more blood. It's up to Madeline to come replenish it from her own supply, another process that I'm told is (ha-ha) draining. — M.L. Brennan

Anyone interested in becoming a professional umpire and becoming eligible to work in the minor leagues must attend one of the two umpire schools sanctioned by Major League Baseball. — Jim Evans

And the man clad in black and silver with a silver rose upon him? He would like to think that he has learned something of trust, that he has washed his eyes in some clear spring, that he has polished an ideal or two. Never Mind. He may still be only a smart-mouthed meddler, skilled mainly in the minor art of survival, blind as ever the dungeons knew him to the finer shades of irony. Never mind, let it go, let it be. I may never be pleased with him. — Roger Zelazny

Dizzy Gillespie recorded it with Charlie Parker in an
influential 1945 track (incorporating a much imitated intro - perhaps initially
intended as a parody of Rachmaninoff 's Prelude in C-Sharp Minor — Ted Gioia

This is ten percent luck, Twenty percent skill, Fifteen percent power of will, Five percent pleasure, Fifty percent pain, and a hundred percent reason to remember the name. — Mike Shinoda

Most other people, your wife included, with her unerring inner compass, seem to be able to get around without difficulty. They know where they are, where they have been, and where they are going, but you know nothing, you are forever lost in the moment, in the void of each successive moment that engulfs you, with no idea where true north is, since the four cardinal points do not exist for you, have never existed for you. A minor infirmity until now, with no dramatic consequences to speak of, but that doesn't mean a day won't come when you accidentally walk off the edge of a cliff. — Paul Auster

During the ice age, many animals died of cold, so the porcupines decided to band together to provide one another with warmth and protection. But their spines or quills kept sticking into their surrounding companions, precisely those who provided most warmth. And so they drifted apart again. And again many of them died of cold. They had to make a choice: either risk extinction or accept their fellow porcupines' spines. Very wisely, they decided to huddle together again. They learned to live with the minor wounds inflicted by their relatives, because the key to their survival was that shared warmth. — Paulo Coelho

A clever man commits no minor blunders. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A word, Sir Jamie. Quickly!"
You may speak freely, Alwyn," Jamie sighed. "You are always making too mcuh of minor incidents."
You're no' going to believe it, Sir Jamie," Alwyn gasped. "But I swear every male Fergusson alive is outside our gate. — Johanna Lindsey

I think there is a very subtle shift from the metal I grew up on to Weezer. I think the big shift was from a minor key to a major key. That made a huge difference in how it was perceived. — Rivers Cuomo

I'm a minor player in my own life story. — Tony Wilson

It is clear from all these data that the interests of teenagers are not focused around studies, and that scholastic achievement is at most of minor importance in giving status or prestige to an adolescent in the eyes of other adolescents. — James S. Coleman

The FSB's invisible presence continued; the agency became an intangible part of my Moscow life - sometimes loudly, sometimes quietly, with someone in a back room clearly turning the volume of minor persecution up and down. — Luke Harding

That's something Mary Lou Williams used to tell me: If you're not feeling right about what you're doing and you play a minor tune it all comes back, falls into place. I don't know if that's true, but I do it. — Marian McPartland

The most overwhelming proof that tax incentives have a relatively minor effect on individual charity is the tremendous consistency over time of giving as a percentage of income. Although the tax code has changed frequently and dramatically over the past twenty-three years, giving as a share of personal income has hovered around 1.83 percent. This measure reached as high as 1.95 percent in 1989 and as low as 1.71 percent in 1985. The narrow range has persisted even though the top marginal tax rate has fluctuated in that period from between 28 and 70 percent. — John S. Barry

'American Music' is an inventive, passionate, pithy novel whose major theme is love itself and whose minor theme, music, is an emotional, meaningful counterpoint. Like Count Basie and His Orchestra, this book swings. — Kate Christensen

First, her father had a minor stroke, giving Claire a glimpse of his mortality and, by extension, her own. And then she had a vision of herself thirty years in the future: a spinster librarian in an apartment full of cats named after New Wave directors. (Godard, leave Rivette's chew toy alone - ) — Jess Walter

There are no perfectly honorable men; but every true man has one main point of honor and a few minor ones. — George Bernard Shaw

Insects influenced the shape of the Australian house. Some, like the white ant and lthe Lyctus borer, worked quietly and invisibly until a little shower of yellow dust or a sudden collapse indicated their presence. Others, like the mosquito and housefly, were less dangerous and more objectionable. The former type influenced structure in minor ways; the latter affected planning to a major degree. — Robin Boyd

Minor vices lead to major ones, but minor virtues stay put. — Mignon McLaughlin

Should surveillance be usable for petty crimes like jaywalking or minor drug possession? Or is there a higher threshold for certain information? Those aren't easy questions. — Bill Gates

That night I couldn't sleep at all. Mozart had shown me immortal light, and I now felt as though I were under direct orders from Mozart. He expressed his sadness not only with the minor scale but with the major scale as well. — Lydia Davis

No movement finding itself in this stage of struggle can operate by getting authority from the leading body of the political organs for even minor action that is taken and we don't even know in the case of the actions which have publicize whether they are in fact our people. — Joe Slovo

So many television marriages -
that playing out of lives against a
background of the tube.
Instead of two lives filing the room,
There are their two lives and the eleven o'clock news with
Constant commercial interruption.
Instead of what you say and what I say.
You don't laugh with me;
I don't laugh with you.
All the wit comes pouring out of the tube.
And we laugh at it together.
The more we avoid talking
the more passive the relationship becomes.
Television permits us to walk through life
with minor speaking parts.
And the more we fail to speak,
the more difficult speaking becomes — Lois Wyse

It is not always worth the discomforts of major surgery to get minor recovery. — Richard Asher

There is no doubt about it that it is more difficult for a woman to follow a career than for a man. Through the centuries his time has been considered more valuable, and he has consequently been excused from wrestling with many of 'life's minor damnabilities. — Alice Hegan Rice

It was really quite flattering to think that minor damage to my skull could cause such a display of hydrotechnics, but at the same time it left me slightly uneasy about what my response ought to be. — Jeff Lindsay

There is a difference between going to a service "for the worship" and going to a service "to worship the Lord." The distinction appears to be a minor one, but it may imply the difference between the worship of God and the worship of music! — Sinclair B. Ferguson

Our best long-term and intermediate cycles suggest another slowdown and stock crash accelerating between very early 2014 and early 2015, and possibly lasting well into 2015 or even 2016. The worst economic trends due to demographics will hit between 2014 and 2019. The U.S. economy is likely to suffer a minor or major crash by early 2015 and another between late 2017 and late 2019 or early 2020 at the latest. — Marc Faber

To convert college sports into professional sports would be tantamount to converting it into minor league sports. And we know that in the U.S., minor league sports aren't very successful either for fan support or for the fan experience. — Mark Emmert

The characters in my books all resemble each other. They live, with minor variations, the same moments, the same perils, and when I speak of them, my language, which is inspired by them, repeats the same poems in the same tone. — Jean Genet

Man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes - obscure heroes who are at times greater than illustrious heroes. — Victor Hugo

God is the original, master forgiver. Each time we grope our reluctant way through the minor miracle of forgiving, we are imitating his style. I am not at all sure that any of us would have had imagination enough to see the possibilities in this way to heal the wrongs of this life had he not done it first. — Lewis B. Smedes

It was then Jessica realized he wasn't using his left hand at all, and that he held the arm oddly, as though something were wrong with it. There shouldn't be except for a minor bullet wound. She'd aimed carefully, and she was an excellent markswoman. Not to mention he was a very large target.
He looked her way then, and caught her staring. Admiring your handiwork, are you? I daresay you'd like a better look. Regrettably, there's nothing to see. There's nothing wrong with it, according to the quacks. Except that it doesn't work. Still, I count myself fortunate, Miss Trent, that you didn't aim a ways lower. I'm merely disarmed, not dismanned. But I have no doubt that Herriard here will see to the emasculation. — Loretta Chase

This might just be two people in a queue, but this has become a mighty battle of wills - a war between all that is right and all that is wrong - and it is I and I alone standing at the gates between one minor slight in the queue-munity, and outright supermarket-based anarchy. In many ways, I am doing this for you. — Danny Wallace

Depressive lucidity, usually described as a radical withdrawal from ordinary human concerns, generally manifests itself by a profound indifference to things which are genuinely of minor interest. Thus it is possible to imagine a depressed lover, while the idea of a depressed patriot seems frankly inconceivable. — Michel Houellebecq

The minor leagues were great. When you first sign, that is your big leagues. — Brian Roberts

Such were our minor preparations for the journey, but above all we laid in an ample stock of good-humour, and a genuine disposition to be pleased; determining to travel in true contrabandista style; taking things as we found them, rough or smooth, and mingling with all classes and conditions in a kind of vagabond companionship. It is the true way to travel in Spain. — Washington Irving

She paid using the prettiest credit card, and then left it with the ticket seller as a gift. Along with a minor curse - a bladder infection and diarrhea - just because she was Baba Yaga, and certain things were expected. — Orson Scott Card

Main characters never die in books. If they did, the story would be ruined, or over."
"Everybody is a main character to someone. There are no minor characters. — Amy Harmon

The Doktor took a fly swatter and hit it hard. 'Bang!' it went. But it didn't go splat! The roach just shook its heads, hissed at him, and staggered off with two minor headaches. — Christina Engela

Give two cooks the same ingredients and the same recipe; it is fascinating to observe how, like handwriting, their results differ. After you cook a dish repeatedly, you begin to understand it. Then you can reinvent it a bit and make it yours. A written recipe can be useful, but sometimes the notes scribbled in the margin are the key to a superlative rendition. Each new version may inspire improvisation based on fresh understanding. It doesn't have to be as dramatic as all that, but such exciting minor epiphanies keep cooking lively. — David Tanis

What will most certainly happen is that there will be very clear and full communication between the government and independents and minor parties. The precise mechanisms will evolve over time, but we certainly intend to keep the minor parties and the independents very much in the loop. We have to if we want our legislative agenda to have a reasonable chance of success and that's what we intend to do. — Tony Abbott

With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself - one of the first songs of the younger world in a day when songs were sad. It was invested with the woe of unnumbered generations, this plaint by which Buck was so strangely stirred. When he moaned and sobbed, it was with the pain of living that was of old the pain of his wild fathers, and the fear and mystery of the cold and dark that was to them fear and mystery. — Jack London

Silence is banished from our screens; it has no place in communication. Media images (and media texts resemble media images in every way) never fall silent: images and messages must follow one upon the other without interruption. But silence is exactly that - a blip in the circuitry, that minor catastrophe, that slip which, on television for instance, becomes
highly meaningful - a break laden now with anxiety, now with jubilation, which confirms the fact that all this communication is basically nothing but a rigid script, an uninterrupted fiction designed to free us not only from the void of the television screen but equally from the void of our own mental screen, whose images we wait on with the same fascination. — Jean Baudrillard

These small indignities and minor cruelties take a toll. They add to the burden of stress and fatigue that is already present in the workplace and they have real consequences on the every day lives of workers. — P. M. Forni

I had no respect whatsoever for the creative works of either the painter or the novelist. I thought Karabekian with his meaningless pictures had entered into a conspiracy with millionaires to make poor people feel stupid. I thought Beatrice Keedsler had joined hands with other old-fashioned storytellers to make people believe that life had leading characters, minor characters, significant details, insignificant details, that it had lessons to be learned, tests to be passed, and a beginning, a middle, and an end. — Kurt Vonnegut

What you are asking God to do will induce a major impact on your life. That major impact cannot happen with minor faith. He will carry out His divine plan by providing you with opportunities to advance yourself in Him. Jesus said, in Luke, 10:19, "Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." He will teach you the skills you need to be a force in your industry, but He will not force you into success. You must reach out and walk through those doors, which are open just for you. — V.L. Thompson

(regarding the prelude from suite two) ... The key is minor, the three notes a tragic triad. The tones move closer and closer to a harrowing vision, weaving spiter-like, relentlessly gathering sound into thighter concentric circle that come to an abrupt stop. Nothing fills the empty space. A tiny prayer is uttered. — Eric Siblin

In Illinois a pregnant woman who takes an illegal drug can be prosecuted for 'delivering a controlled substance to a minor.' This is an explicit recognition that the unborn is a person with rights of her own. But that same woman who is prosecuted and jailed for endangering her child is perfectly free to abort her child. In America today, it is illegal to harm your preborn child, but it is perfectly legal to kill him. — Randy Alcorn

I liked being a minor because you can't get into trouble. Now I just have to try and behave myself. — Avril Lavigne

When people listen to my music, I hope that they will notice that if you take a piece by a composer like Schubert, the major and the minor triad is an extermely important thing not merely as harmony, but in creating melodic lines. Schubert is always walking up and down with arpeggios on C, E, G and so forth. I am not doing anything different really, except using a different system of harmony. — Elliott Carter

If there is anything I have learned about men and women, it is that there is a deeper spirit of altruism than is ever evident. Just as the rivers we see are minor compared to the underground streams, so, too, the idealism that is visible is minor compared to what people carry in their hearts unreleased or scarcely released. — Albert Schweitzer

Punctuality is one of the minor virtues which we do not acquire until later in life. — Virginia Woolf

The progression of minor keys ... they're meant to represent imperfection ... "
I understand. But that is a philosophical conceit. All artists strive toward perfection or else lack fire."
Imperfections make the gods draw near. They crave to fix things. Same way some people leap in to finish other people's sentences. God loves nothing better than to break perfect things. — Carla Speed McNeil

To call it a "setback" is like calling the Expulsion from Eden a minor misunderstanding. — Sharon Kay Penman

The large-scale homogeneity of the universe makes it very difficult to believe that the structure of the universe is determined by anything so peripheral as some complicated molecular structure on a minor planet orbiting a very average star in the outer suburbs of a fairly typical galaxy. — Stephen Hawking

Informal relationships are not mere minor interstitial supplements to the major institutions of society. These informal relationships not only include important decision-making processes, such as the family, but also produce much of the background social capital without which the other major institutions of society could not function nearly as effectively as they do. — Thomas Sowell

I was never a 'bad' kid, but I did get into minor juvenile trouble. Look, I grew up in Brooklyn. This was the '60s, and the neighborhood was rapidly changing and not without its problems. All the kids of the neighborhood 'did their thing,' breaking windows and the like. I was no different. — William Forsythe

He came to believe that this was the very sort of thing that happened when you let yourself get caught in one culture's insistence that love ought to be like this or that. The key for people like him, he ultimately concluded, in this as in most matters, was to be nimble. Your privilege as an immigrant was to pick and choose your inheritance, maintain what suited you and participate merely to the extent of your patience and interest. It was not in your nature to align with one side fully, and so you couldn't help but make a life that was both apart and among. You didn't make one choice and stick with it but, rather, hundreds of minor choices with which you created a unique path through the corridors of old traditions and the avenues of the new. And you cultivated this dividedness because you carried always the imprint of that first move -- the decision to leave home. Indeed, this initiating choice, more than anything, was your true inheritance. — Saher Alam

I just wish life was more like my books," Fern complained [ ... ] "Main characters never die in books. If they did, the story would be ruined, or over."
"Everybody is a main character to someone," Bailey theorized, winding his way through the busy hall and out the nearest exit into the November afternoon. "There are no minor characters. — Amy Harmon

People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Man is the only slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day, he is always some man's slave for wages, and does that man's work; and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living. — Mark Twain

You hear lots of notes, don't you? Some have a major sound. Some have a minor sound. But there's not one blue note among all these black and white keys. The real blues, the soul of the sound, comes from the spaces in-between. — David Mutti Clark

I was alone, without a single cent, in an unknown country. If I'd learned anything from last year's ill-fated adventures, though, it was not to get overwhelmed by minor inconveniences. — Isabel Allende

Through the various discourses, legal sanctions against minor perversions were multiplied; sexual irregularity was annexed to mental illness; from childhood to old age, a norm of sexual development was defined and all the possible deviations were carefully described; pedagogical controls and medical treatments were organized; around the least fantasies, moralists, but especially doctors, brandished the whole emphatic vocabulary of abomination. — Michel Foucault

We often add to our pain and suffering by being overly sensitive, over-reacting to minor things, and sometimes taking things too personally. — Dalai Lama

The regrets I have are so minor. You know, would I leave my Keith Richards hat, with the silver skull on it, on the stool at the coffee shop at LaGuardia? I wouldn't do that again. But overall, no, I don't have any regrets. — Hunter S. Thompson

I could stop and say, Well that was a D minor, G seven, but I really don't want to know that. I just want to know that there's a combination of notes that makes a sound. — Lee Konitz

Schools themselves aren't creating the opportunity gap: the gap is already large by the time children enter kindergarten and does not grow as children progress through school. The gaps in cognitive achievement by level of maternal education that we observe at age 18-powerful predictors of who goes to college and who does not - are mostly present at age 6when children enter school. Schooling plays only a minor role in alleviating or creating test score gaps. — Robert D. Putnam

Dalgliesh reflected that one of the minor hazards of a murder investigation was the inordinate amount of caffeine he was expected to consume. But he wanted the interview to be as informal as possible, and food or drink always helped. — P.D. James

You are obvious, boy. You are difficult to miss. If you came to me in company with a purple lion, a green elephant, and a scarlet unicorn astride which was the King of England in his Royal Robes, I do believe that it is you and you alone that people would stare at, dismissing the others as minor irrelevancies. — Neil Gaiman