“I came to the conclusion that people were just peculiar, I withdrew from them, and never thought about them until I was forced to.”

“I never thought I would hear you expound the virtues of caring about people." I frowned. "I care about people. I just don’t like them.”

“There were birds in the sky, but I never saw them winging, No I never saw them at all, Until there was you.”

“I thought how you can never tell just by looking at them what they were thinking or what was happening In their lives. Even when you got daft people or drunk people on buses, people that went on stupid and shouted rubbish or tried to tell you all about themselves, you could never really tell about them either... I knew if somebody looked at me, they'd know nothing about me, either.”

“I want things so bad that I force them, push them until they tear.”

“I had forgotten that Jess felt about long words the way that racists feel about black people: she hated them, and wanted to send them back from where they came from.”