“Firstly, being a local councillor, he was probably a cunt! A real 'book-waving-starch-underpants-wearing-precedent - quoting-sub-section-paragraph-thee-looking-up' sort of arsehole who lived his life by the numbers and reported his neighbours if they so much as tried to put up a bird-table without planning permission.”

“I love cats, they're great; intelligent, affectionate, lovable, and this one was particularly nice, so picking it up and giving it a few slaps and a bit of a rough time was galling, even though it was unfortunately necessary. See, if you're hiding in someone's spare bedroom waiting for them to turn in for the night, the last thing you need is a cat meowing at the door trying to get in to see you because you've been stroking it all day. A bit of a shake and a growl in the cat's face and that's all that's usually needed for it to give the spare room and the horrible bastard inside a wide berth for the rest of the night.”

“At first I assumed he was a Mexican, but slowly began to realise that a real Mexican probably wouldn't be wearing a sombrero in a London nightclub. And he'd probably have a real moustache, not a stick-on one. A Mexican with a stick-on moustache would be like a Super-Mexican, because he'd have two moustaches, and that'd be cool, because a Super-Mexican could probably use his poncho as a cape, and then I realised I was saying all this to the man's face.”

“I’m not one of those guys who can hear a band and immediately cite their influences and probable heroes. There are guys like that out there. Play them the first drumbeat and they’ll start banging on about Led Zeppelin or Limp Bizkit or how everything can be traced back to the man who wrote the Birdie Song. Dev can do it with videogames. He can take one look at a game and tell you what it’s trying to be, where it got the idea, what it’s been crossed with and how well it’s done, but I just can’t. Because I’m the other sort of person. A Type 2. One that judges everything on its own merits. Not because it’s the right and just and fair thing to do, but because there’s something about me that doesn’t quite have that passion. That need for peripheral knowledge. I like a little of everything; I don’t need it all. It can make conversations with the Type 1s a little strained. A Type 1 will have all his opinions ready to go and probably alphabetised before he even gets near you. A Type 2 will then shrink behind his sandwich.”

“He merely sought a framework, like a coat hanger on which he could hang his life. At least then it might look like a life which was ready to be inhabited rather than a crumpled garment on the floor.”

“Probably some of the best things that have ever happened to you in life, happened because you said yes to something. Otherwise things just sort of stay the same.”

“And there, surrounded by death above and below, he sticks his tongue out and tastes the sweetness of life.”