“It’s awful, telling it like this, isn’t it? As though we didn’t know the ending. As though it could have another ending. It’s like watching Romeo drink poison. Every time you see it you get fooled into thinking his girlfriend might wake up and stop him. Every single time you see it you want to shout, 'You stupid ass, just wait a minute,' and she’ll open her eyes! 'Oi, you, you twat, open your eyes, wake up! Don’t die this time!' But they always do.”

“Nothing like an arcane literary debate with your tyrannical master while you pass the time leading to your execution.”

“People are complicated. There is so much more to everybody than you realize. You see someone in school everyday, or at work, in the canteen, and you share a cigarette of a coffee with them, and you talk about the weather or last night's air raid. But you don't talk so much about what was the nastiest thing you ever said to your mother, or how you pretended to be David Balfour, the hero of Kidnapped, for the whole of the year when you were 13, or what you imagine yourself doing with the pilot who looks like Leslie Howard if you were alone in his bunk after a dance.”

“Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. It’s poison every single time.”

“The anticipation of what they will do to you is every bit as sickening in a dream as when it is really going to happen.”

“How did you ever get here, Maddie Brodatt?""'Second to the right, and then straight on till morning,'" she answered promptly-it did feel like Neverland."Crikey, am I so obviously Peter Pan?"Maddie laughed. "The Lost Boys give it away."Jamie studied his hands. "Mother keeps the windows open in all our bedrooms while we're gone, like Mrs. Darling, just in case we come flying home when she's not expecting us.”

“I don't want to die, but I wish waking up every morning didn't feel like such a fuck-you every single time.”