Jenny Valentine

“I cut off a piece of meatball dripping with sauce. I tried to make my face right. I tried to smile and not grimace, tried to close my eyes in delight , not panic; tried to swallow, not gag. They watched me like hawks.'Delicious,' I said, still chewing. They tasted like salt and shit and gristle.'As good as you remember?''Better.'I got through two. I drank a lot of water. I broke them down into fractions of themselves, sixteen more to go, fourteen more, eight, one. In my head I said sorry to grandad, and to the lamb or pig or mixture of creatures I was eating. I put my knife and fork together with four of them still swimming on my plate.”

“According to Grandad, being a vegetarian wasn't about just health or cruelty of money or flavor: it was about manners. He said that stealing milk and eggs and honey was enough of a liberty without hacking off someone's leg and then drowning it in gravy. He had a point.”

“It's not knowing that drives you mad. It's imaging things that you wish you couldn't think up all by yourself.”

“I told myself that some families we get without asking, while others we choose. And I chose those two. I think that’s what you’d call a silver lining.”

“I thought about having a proper room,breathing life into it, and nobody minding.”

“Everything is going to be fine.”I hate it when people say that, people who have absolutely no idea of what’s coming next. They turn you into an idiot for even asking.”

“Even when you’d lost everything you thought there was to lose, somebody came along and gave you something for free.”

“I smiled back and I thoughthow incredible that was, that they would find the time to smile. There was goodness in the world still, even if you couldn’t always see it.”

“There was goodness in the world still, even if you couldn't always see it.”

“I didn't have time to lose it. I didn't have time to lie down in the corner shop and scream and beat the floor until my hands bled. I didn't have time to miss Jack. Stroma kept on chattering away and getting excited over novelty spaghetti shapes and finding the joy in every little thing, and it occurred to me even then that she was probably looking after me, too.”

“What's wrong with the world Peter?God, I don't know. Where do you start? People give up. We're defeatists and we stop striving or fighting or enjoying things. It doesn't matter what you're talking about - war, work, marriage, democracy, love, it all fails because everybody gives up trying after a while, we can't help ourselves. And don't ask me to solve it because I am the worst. I'd escape tomorrow if I could, from every single thing I've always wanted.”