"a man whose life is so boring that if it flashed past he wouldn't be in it"

“Bassett was a member of parliament and a cousin on my father's side of the family. My father delivered him and it became plain in later days that he must have dropped him.”

“When asked, "So, what are you going to do with the rest of your life?": "I'm going to be a jockey.”

“When asked, "Does God help you?": "He's not really in caucus lately.”

“To US Ambassador H. Monroe Browne, who owned a racehorse called Lacka Reason: "You are the only ambassador in the world to race a horse named after your country's foreign policy.”

“...it all happened so quickly you got a lot of bewilderment; you get a lot of people who are basically meat-and-three-veg quarter-acre New Zealanders who find themselves eating dim sims with chopsticks and they can't cope.”

“He had more on his mind than his mind could hold.”