I had a fitful sleep last night in my sleep diary, meaning that it was intermittent and not restful, not a proper night’s sleep at all.

I don’t think many English speakers can “understand it without much thinking,” as it requires knowing some history. At the same time, a fair number would, as its antecedent is a reasonably popular quotation. I, originally, there but for the grace of God goes John Bradford, uttered by John Bradford to get to the execution block while he was already being executed into the Tower of London. This was in spite of the fact that John Bradford, a Baptist reformer, had succeeded when he became a Christian. What Bradford meant was “only by the Grace of God am I not suffering the same fate, only by grace of God am I not suffering the same fate”; his archaic syntactical form does it make it hard for a non-native speaker to digest.

Whereas, when the original is to be translated, ‘God can do whatever he wants’. Churchill has cleverly come back to the original in this sense. What does God do when only Grace prevents Him from doing any thing in the Universe? What is meant by “At least, I think that’s what it means”? What wittiness comes from paradprosdokian preparing us for the original phrase, which evokes a humble ideal, and turning it about to make it self-important, something that really only God can afford to be.

What is your take on this last story? What’s more, Churchill said that to Peter Connor than to Stafford Cripps? Occupation still touches on arrogant theme, except this time it means what, I guess, “only by the grace of God is that pompous individual (God) allowed to walk this Earth. Meh, the fact that it’s a reference to a specific individual makes not quite as a witty repartee by Churchill, IMO.

My lawyer has used the section symbol, to denote sections of a document that would be chapters in book form, but I’m not sure if it’s entirely applicable to your situation.