The privileged Victorians who did most to improve the lives of the poor were not ashamed of their pious intent: they were superiors seeking to help inferiors.

Not for the first time, Peter thought about how much of our lives we spend sequestered inside small patches of electric brightness, blind to everything beyond the reach of those fragile bulbs.

If you don't improve the lives of the poor, it's not charity.

When we ask bureaucrats to identify who is responsible for fixing anything, they reassure us that there are 'procedures in place.'

I'm ashamed to say that I'm from a very privileged background.

Most books are surplus to the world's requirements, and I am going to sound very conceited here, but I am trying to write books that aren't just using up trees.