"There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world."-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"Rain hang about the place like a friendly ghost. If it's not coming down in delicate droplets, then it's in buckets; and if neither, it tends to lurks suspiciously in the atmosphere."-Barbara Acton-Bond