“As we reached the wooded hill that led to the pipe, Cheater said, "Uh-oh.""What's wrong?" I asked."Is anyone here thinking about kicking the crap out of me?" he asked."Not me," I said."Me either," Lucky said."Maybe tomorrow," Flinch told him. "But not at the moment." hidden talents”

“One of Mom's favorite passages from Gilead was: "This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me, and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, what is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation.?"...But the question from Gilead, Mom said, was always the thing you needed to ask yourself: "What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation?" It helped you remember that people aren't here for you; everyone is here for one another.”

“Do you ever hear from yourdad?’ I ask.‘Uh-uh. Mum said they had the biggestfight before he left. She was sixteen and telling him about me and he left a dad shaped hole in the wall.”

“He told me that when we first met, he had said to a friend about me: “If I get that girl’s number I will never ask another girl for her number again.”

“I asked him if he'd come to clean the windows and he said no he'd come to demolish the house. He didn't tell me straight away of course. Oh no. First he wiped a couple of windows and charged me a fiver. Then he told me.”

“One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'.”