“If we were rational creatures we would never get out of bed or live or love.”

“If there was some way of knowing which boys were likely to turn out to be decent men, boys that could love us back as passionately as we felt we could love them, then we could banish the likelihood of divorce and unhappiness to a statistically unlikely outcome.”

“Don't you find it strange that your mother would leave you?' Becky said. 'I can't imagine my other leaving me.'I'd never thought of it like that before. 'I don't think she knew what else to do.”

“I followed Barry closely as we walked through the main doors of the hospital, down the corridor that smelt like disinfectant and false hope.”

“I was thinking how complicated life is and how there are no simple roads or paths. We are a fabric of mistakes and hurts; a family tree of fumbled attempts, successes and failures.”

“I could feel their grief as if it were a beast holding us down.”

“Creativity and ideas fired between every synapse underneath my skin and I felt radiant from the inside out.”