“What part of being stranded in a shack and risking hypothermia is romantic?”

“Hypothermia. That’s what they called it. I called it being freaking alive, and I couldn’t have been more grateful.”

“Part of being open to learning is taking risks!”

“I see autism as having many different strands. All of these strands are beautiful. They are all the colours of the rainsbow intertwined intricately into the child. If you try and take away the autism by removing the strands you also take away parts of the child as they are attached to them. Thhey are what makes them who they are. However autism is only a part of them, not the whole. It does not define them.This is for my Tom.”

“To be honest," I halfwhispered,"I don't feel as safe with him as Ido with you.""I know."A ghost of a smile touched my lips. "Howdo you know?""Think about what safety is, Ella.""Trust?""Yes, partly. But also an absence of risk."He unstuck a strand of hair from my dampcheek and tucked it back. "Maybe you needto take a risk. Maybe you need to be withsomeone who rattles you a little.”

“Permanence has been swept aside by the rapidity of empty images. The pantheon, we discover to our astonishment, is the doghouse of the burning asylum... We think our brain is a marble mausoleum, when in fact it's a house made of cardboard boxes, a shack stranded between an empty field and an endless dusk.”