“The idea that Sophie could die had always been there, ever since the first diagnosis, and yet it seemed like a bad place on a map, an Ivory Coast, somewhere not urgently frightening because fear itself kept you away from the place. You thought of it as somewhere braver people went, or at least as somewhere you'd have plenty of time to pack your bags for.”

“Competing in an Olympics didn't scare her now. The thought of stepping up into the full roar of the crowd, in London, seemed simple and natural and good. It was ordinary days now that frightened her - endless Tuesday mornings and Wednesday afternoons of real life, the days you had to steer through without the benefit of handlebars. Off the bike she was like a smoker without cigarettes, never sure what to do with her hands. As soon as she got off the bike, her heart was expected to perform all these baffling secondary functions - like loving someone and feeling something and belonging somewhere - when all she'd ever trained it to do was pump blood.”

“Off the bike she was like a smoker without cigarettes, never sure what to do with her hands. As soon as she got off the bike, her heart was expected to perform all these baffling secondary functions like loving someone and feeling something and belonging somewhere - when all she'd ever trained it to do was pump blood.”

“There was no quick grief for Andrew because he had been so slowly lost. First from my heart, then from my mind, and only finally from my life.”

“But that is the way with killers, I suppose. What is the end of all innocence for you is just another Tuesday morning for them, and they walk off back to their planet of death giving no more thought to the world of the living that we would give to any other tourist destination: a place to be briefly visited and returned from with souvenirs and a haunting sensation that we could have paid less for them.”

“He felt good for once, he really did. Maybe the deal was that life had to break your body down before you could see it. Maybe there wasn’t any other racket in town except this one that brought you to your nadir and challenged you to build yourself back up from it, then showed you that what you’d done at least meant something to someone.”

“He really had experienced every tiniest increment of time in the four decades since then, and yet here he was surprised to be suddenly old and crippled. Turned out the rope didn't care if you noticed every daisy on the path to the gallows.”