As soon as she was out of the magpie's sight, she crept along the short corridor which led back to the garden.

He needled the air with his baton as though poking a rotisserie ham with a thermometer.

For the next three years, she traveled all over the world with her meditation and yoga teacher, studying Indian philosophy, Sanskrit, yoga, Indian music and cooking.

He forced himself to think about Denver.

She lived in a cream-colored world.

He loved humankind dearly and with all his heart, but he disliked most human beings.

She flickered away, pale and mothlike in the gloom.

Despite his youth and delicate health, he retired to a desert; he practiced severe mortification, tempted continually by the demons expending all their efforts to make him abandon this life of total renouncement.

Hopelessly behind schedule, she frittered away much of the remaining time on an unrelated project.

Not thinking too much about things, he returned home only to develop a bad case of curiosity later in the day.

But when she ordered a chicken Caesar salad in a restaurant one day, it never occurred to her that the small amount of cheese in the dressing would be a problem.

He grasped the strategic importance of Hungary.

She took the lamb and drove to Boston, where she stayed with a friend.

He knew they could be petty and egotistical but he also knew they were possessed by a writing spirit and were unable to do any other kind of gainful work.

She read a great deal, and very soon realized how little chance she had of an interesting future.

He said that it was illegal in those days to stand up in a beer parlour with a drink in your hand.

She was only six months old but her face was astonishingly beautiful.

He sold all his Coke merchandise and made a tidy profit, and now he has a signed medical prescription for Coca-Cola, framed and hanging on his bedroom wall.

There were times when she drove all night rather than fly because the cost of airfare was prohibitive.

He spent it all on drink and riotous living and died bankrupt.