“....For the first time in his life he’d dared to believe in happily-ever-after.He learned at a young age it was unattainable. Therefore, he’d never even tried... until Claire.”

“He [dad] always had some kind of trouble with his leg. He’d have bandages wrapped around it all the time but he’d never go and see a doctor. He’d rather have dropped dead than go to a doctor. He was terrified of them, like a lot of people his age were. And he’d never take a day off work. If he ever stayed at home feeling ill, it was time to call the undertaker.”

“There was a time he’d heard tales of Dab Sweet and he’d stuck thumbs in his belt and chin to the sky and tricked himself that was how his life had been. But the years scraped by hard as ever and he got less and the stories more ’til they were tales of a man he’d never met succeeding at what he’d never have dreamed of attempting.”

“He’d never called her. Wanted to. A hundred times. But every time he thought about it, his mind boiled up with every reason not to do it, every doubt he’d ever had about himself.”

“Alan shook his head. Jeremy was hopeless. Either he’d find an equally soft-headed girl and they’d live happily ever after like two cooing doves, or he’d be eaten alive by some she-spider.”

“He tried not to think about his Grandma’s opinion of whores and drugs. He could only believe in the pattern he’d learned from Beckett—a pattern of respect and kindness.”