“The sun was up - stuck like half a tinned apricot on a sky awash with all the colours of a fading bruise. Down below the living dead were forming their complaining queues at bus stops.”

“The rains stopped and the clouds were cleaved into shifting forms, slowly disappearing, slowly fading to blue sky, bright blue sky, with the sun, and the boy stood staring until everything turned white, and the owl flew carrying the boy away to join with the moon”

“Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw whatever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall - it's wet.”

“Last night they had said and done all those things, and now they were like strangers in a bus queue. The mistake she had made was to fall asleep and break the spell.”

“although we all have dark bruised spots on our pasts that never seem to heal. Instead of fading, they pass through the colours of the rainbow, shining dully, differently, on each and every moment in our lives.”

“So fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there that the sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.”