Frank Cottrell Boyce

“Low gravity Monopoly is better than the Monopoly you play round the kitchen table, in that it only lasts a few minutes.”

“And in that moment, I felt my own ignorance spread suddenly out behind me like a pair of wings, and every single thing I didn’t know was a feather on those wings. I could feel them tugging at the air, restless to be airborne.”

“Jem tugged the floral curtains open just above Mum's bed. She stretched and said, "Oh!" because there is something especially cosy about pulling open floral curtains in your camper van and finding the Mediterranean Sea shining hundreds of feet below you and seabirds twirling all around you. Especially if the kettle has just boiled.”

“Where's Dorothy?" Dad said. "I don't know. She came in, took the money and went. I don't even know how she got in.""What did she say?""She said "shush"" "And what did you say?""I shushed”

“There are more stars than there are people. Billions, Alan had said, and millions of them might have planets just as good as ours. Ever since I can remember, I’ve felt too big. But now I felt small. Too small. Too small to count. Every star is massive, but there are so many of them. How could anyone care about one star when there were so many spare? And what if stars were small? What if all the stars were just pixels? And earth was less than a pixel? What does that make us? And what does that make me? Not even dust. I felt tiny. For the first time in my life I felt too small.”

“Gravity is not a trivial monster.”

“We walked on the moon. We made footprints somewhere no one else had ever made footprints, and unless someone comes and rubs them out, those footprints will be there forever because there’s no wind.”

“Oh. My. God.’ she said, pointing out of the window. ‘Do you know what that is?’I nodded and said, ‘I think I may have seen it before.’‘That,’ said Florida, ‘is the Moonyouidiot.”