“Jane woke, stretched, and decided to kill herself. If she hadn’t found a reason to live by the end of the day she would jump from the rig. It felt good to have a plan.”

“Her professionalism aside, Nabisase's victory was rigged by an endomorph and a goblin standing in crabgrass, and she would never know it. There are so many lives decided this way.”

“Her room felt wonderful to her, as usual. She looked around with satisfaction… She imagined to herself that she would always live this way, even after she had grown up and moved away from her family. She planned to have exactly the same room wherever she was, because this room was her. No matter what happened out there in the rest of the world, she felt totally comfortable once she got into this room and closed the door.”

“She felt as if she'd always been holding a part of herself back, saving it, and she had a terrible fear she would end up saving it forever. That she would die with whole parts of herself unused.”

“Lou felt as though she would rather jump from her bathroom window than open the door and smile at him then, she managed it. And she even pinched his bum as the passed in the doorway. Not because she wanted him to act on the flirtatious gesture. But he deserved it. Because he was a great bloke and she knew she should be grateful to have him and perhaps, one day, if she let herself believe that someone that fantastic might really be the one for her, she'd get over it and they'd live happily ever after.”

“Mattie sat at the table, obsessing, orbiting around herself. She was sick of her worried, hostile mind. It would have killed her long before, she felt, if it hadn't needed the transportation.”