A child is a gift from God - as we all are, she measured out, with not a tinge of irony.

'Wonder is a gift,' he'd whisper into her ear. 'Wonder is not lack of knowledge, Wonder is not ignorance. No, wonder is a gift - the gift of knowing there are things we cannot know.'

In the fields, husbands, wives and children did the same, until everywhere were hapless little bundles of people cut loose from life. Hopelessly hanging together. Each thinking the same thought. Wondering when death would claim them.

He worked more furiously, trying to outpace the run of the rot. But the result was the same. No matter where he dug, the blight had been there before him, waiting for him, waiting to cover his hands with its black clinging cloyingness.

As the death Cloud darkened the sky over the Lake of Hate, Ellen raised her arms to the Heavens. 'God!' she shouted, 'is this Your vengeance? What have we done except to be poor? And if we have sinned...if I have sinned, why punish my children? Why condemn the innocent with the guilty?' She violently hurtled the words at Him. 'Answer me - answer me, if You are up there at all!'

God dosn’t rule the world - religion does!

They say 'tis harder to find a good landlord than it is to find a white blackbird".

«My country is blighted not because of the priests, but because of union with the Crown. A Crown that took, and took, until the very marrow was sucked from the bones of the people.”

Pon my oath, it’s harder for the poor to get into the poorhouse, than it is for the rich to get into heaven.