The thing I was most gutted about was that I had planned to finish knitting a patchwork cot blanket. It never did get finished.

I always mix up Jack with Jake.

A smile […] breaks out with the brightest distriction.

He [Pierre-Simon Laplace] was friends with the chemist, taxman and guillotinee Antoine Lavoisier (see Chapter 7), and together they produced influential work on the nature of heat.