“They were like people who run to meet, holding out their arms, but their aim is wrong; they pass each other and keep running.”

“Unlike diamonds, watches were practical. They were for people on the run, people with appointments to keep and schedules to meet.”

“For you see, when us people who know run into each other that's an event. It almost never happens. Sometimes we meet each other and neither guesses that the other is one who knows. That's a bad thing. It's happened to me a lot of times. But you see there are so few of us.”

“Lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part, never to meet again. No words passing between them. No promises to keep.”

“People who meet in airports are seventy-two percent more likely to fall for each other than people who meet anywhere else.”

“If you were a boy and a girl and you were in love with each other, really, properly in love, and if you could show it, then the people who run Hailsham, they sorted it out for you. They sorted it out so you could have a few years together before you began your donations.”