As he ponders the most important political move of his career, Peter Robinson could do worse than to remember the inspiring words of Johnny Carson: "If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead."
I wish I had thought of saying it when I met Robinson last Wednesday at his home, but, as with most of these things, it only occurred to me on the way home. Robinson, at bay after the worst period of his life, is still an impressive figure. The weight has fallen off him and he looks drawn, but he is surprisingly relaxed as he sprawls across a leather armchair, legs dangling over the arm, to describe how things are for him.
The first part of our conversation was, almost inevitably, taken up with complaints about the "press pack" who have been out for his blood ever since a BBC Spotlight documentary tore his wife Iris's political career out by the roots with revelations of an affair and of how she had solicited payouts to her lover from two property developers, pocketing a £5,000 commission.
Robinson finds it hard, as anyone in his position would, to accept that the documentary was valid. He is still in shock at the fact that his wife of 40 years betrayed him, as he puts it, with another man. He sees it as an outrageous series of events in which he is the innocent party. That is where Carson comes in; life is under no obligation to be fair and it only makes things worse if we imagine it should be.
The programme had the goods on Iris, who has suffered a breakdown and is recovering in a psychiatric unit. She has yet to see the documentary or the hostile newspaper reports that followed, and it will take some time in treatment before the full extent of the coverage can be revealed to her. The programme did not have any killer information on Robinson himself, however. It has now emerged that he moved to get the money repaid by Kirk McCambley, his wife's young lover, as soon as he knew about it. He did not know his wife had profited from the transaction until he saw Spotlight, so could not have disclosed the fact on any register of interests.
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Unless something new emerges on the financial side - and he firmly denies that there is anything that could damage him - he seems to be in the clear. The last week of media coverage has tried to prove the contrary. It will take months before the various standards bodies he has called in to investigate the case reach a conclusion.
In the mean time, the best thing for Robinson is to move on - and he is determined to do so. There were reports that he could not make a return to active politics after he delegated some of his duties as first minister to one of his strongest supporters, Arlene Foster, for up to six weeks. Sitting with him for the best part of two hours, it didn't look that way. Robinson took several calls about the talks with Sinn Fein, issued instructions on his mobile and was attended at his home by two aides, one of them a senior strategist. He says he intends to stay on as leader of the Democratic Unionists as long as the party wants him to. Last week there was a unanimous show of support from senior figures even if, as he says, "in any party there are one or two people who will see an opportunity to sharpen the knife. I have no doubt that somewhere in the dark recesses there were some people like that".
His supporters are taking steps to smoke them out and he may not be very forgiving if they show their hands. He says his people had "been testing some sources to see who was leaking" by circulating false rumours, such as the story that Iris was in the French ski resort of Chamonix, to see if they turn up in press coverage.
Changing the story and putting it behind him is more important, and that is where the scandal has given a new impetus to political negotiations. If Robinson had resigned as first minister, as he considered doing last weekend, he would have been chiefly remembered for exiting the political stage in the midst of a scandal. It would also have meant an early assembly election at the worst possible time for both his party and the future of devolution.
Sinn Fein wouldn't have liked it much either. It would probably have meant a suspension of the assembly. Republicans need the profile their Stormont ministries give them, as they have little or no influence in the Dail and abstain at the House of Commons.
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"I am convinced that Sinn Fein's No 1 priority is not to walk away from the assembly and bring it down; I think their priority is to get policing and justice devolved and, knowing what I do ... I think the issues are not insurmountable," says Robinson.
Whatever divides them, the two parties recognise a common interest in making this thing work and staving off an election until one naturally occurs in 2011.
There are, as Robinson points out, knife sharpeners within his own ranks. There are senior party figures uneasy about the prospect of doing any sort of deal with the Shinners. There is also the danger of defections to the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) party, which opposes power-sharing, or the more moderate Ulster Unionist party (UUP), led by Sir Reg Empey, which feels it has been ignored in negotiations.
As Robinson puts it: "There is no way I can say, 'Yes, there is confidence' [in the unionist community] for devolution if on one side I have the TUV saying, 'Never, never, never', and on the other side I have Reg Empey saying, 'No, not now'."
Given the nervousness in his own ranks, Robinson needs the support of at least one other unionist party. He says: "I think the Ulster Unionist party need to be indicating to us that this is the right time" to take the plunge into full devolution of policing and justice powers. That puts Empey in a strong position and explains why he is suddenly being courted by the Democratic Unionists and why his concerns about the slowness of decision-making in the executive are being listened to so attentively.
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Nobody knows how this will play out, but one distinct possibility is a realignment of unionism. Robinson didn't mention the issue, but the allocation of the justice ministry to the UUP instead of Alliance or the SDLP can't be ruled out. Some in the UUP suggest that Lady Hermon, their sole MP and a former academic lawyer, could be co-opted into the assembly and given the post. Any party leader can replace one of his assembly members with another without an election.
Bringing in Hermon would solve a problem for Empey. He is in a pact with the British Conservative party, but Hermon refuses to take the Tory whip and threatens to stand as an independent in the Westminster election. In the assembly, that question wouldn't arise for her. She is seen by Sinn Fein as one of the most liberal and left-leaning unionists and is friendly with Michelle Gildernew, a Sinn Fein minister.
It's almost too neat a solution to happen in the real world. But the negotiations in progress are in deadly earnest and options once considered unthinkable will find their way onto the table.