“No mat­ter how much I try and hide this, bit by bit, I start to fall apart.”

“I was happy in the dream; but when I woke up it was with a feeling that I was falling apart, that I was cracking up from the inside and slowly falling to pieces. My heart was jumping and grating like a cold engine that doesn't want to start. My skin was crawling, and I couldn't manage a single clear thought. It was as if all my thoughts were crushed to bits just as they began to take shape. I didn't get much done that day.”

“Funny how, when one part of your life falls away, the other bits that are left start looking rather feeble.”

“No sooner do we come into this world, than bits of us start to fall off.”

“No choice but stand. Somehow up and stand. Somehow stand. That or groan. The groan so long on its way. No. No groan. Simply pain. Simply up. A time when try how. Try see. Try say. How first it lay. Then somehow knelt. Bit by bit. Then on from there. Bit by bit. Till up at last.”

“The first book we fall in love with shapes us every bit as much as the first person we fall in love with...”