“Speaking was temporarily beyond him, what with the testicular trauma and ass-stabbing.”

“I rather wished I'd stabbed him somewhere less awkward.”

“It's no surprise to him what any government does, least of all his own.”

“Pain is beyond reason, an obliterating giant stupidity to which all your history of jokes and nuance and ideas and caresses is nothing, simply nothing . . .”

“Suddenly, he missed her, their shared history. The way they remained tuned to each other across a room full of people. He's look up and see her green eyes glance at him. Yes. I know. Us. They'd known there was nothing novel about it as far as the world was concerned; they'd known it was only love, which the world had seen billions of times before. Or rather Cheryl had known. He'd never considered it. Having fallen in love with her he'd realised love was what he's been waiting for. The question of what he [i]wanted[/i] out of life had been answered. Whereas Cheryl had space left over. It was one of the differences between them. It was what kept him striving towards her.”

“One develops an instinct for letting silence do the heavy lifting. In the three, four, five seconds that passed without either of us speaking, the many ways the conversation could go came and went like time-lapse film of flowers blooming and dying.”

“Reader, I ate him.”