“Only a rich cunt can save me now,' he says with an air of utmost weariness. 'One gets tired of chasing after new cunts all the time. It gets mechanical. The trouble is, you see, I can't fall in love. I'm too much of an egoist. Women only help me to dream, that's all. It's a vice, like drink or opium. I've got to have a new one every day; if I don't I get morbid. I think too much. Sometimes I'm amazed at myself, how quick I pull it off — and how little it really means. I do it automatically like. Sometimes I'm not thinking about a woman at all, but suddenly I notice a woman looking at me and then, bango! it starts all over again. Before I know what I'm doing I've got her up to the room. I don't even remember what I say to them. I bring them up to the room, give them a pat on the ass, and before I know what it's all about it's over. It's like a dream.... Do you know what I mean?”

“Anthony took the pipe out of his mouth and smiled at her. "Sorry, dear! You know I don't mean to get like this, but I can't help it. What you want me to tell you is what I'm thinking, but I can't, because I don't know. Now, now, that's not clever, it's purely a statement of fact. We've been married quite long enough for you to know me by this tim, but you never seem to have understood properly what a tidy mind I've got. That, you know, is really why I'm always getting mixed up in this 'finding-out' business. When I see a thing all unreasonable and all at loose ends, I just have to see whether I can't straighten it out, and it's the same with my own thinking. When my own thinking's just a mess, it isn't tidy, and therefore I won't let it release its untidiness onto the world. I have to get it nicely rearranged and sorted before I can really talk.”

“It matters to me. That's what you don't get. You can't understand. You can't understand what it's like knowing what I did. That whole time being Strigoi...It's like a dream now, but it's one I remember clearly. There can be no forgiveness for me. And what happened with you? I remember that most of all. Everything I did. Everything I wanted to do.”

“I was thinking about attraction. I have this theory on it. On love." She wouldn't look at me.I swallowed, but managed, "This ought to be good."Nuala shot me a hard look. "Shut up. I don't think love has anything to do with how the other person is. I mean, maybe a little. I think what really matters is you yourself. Like, you know, let's say you lo- really liked a self-involved ass. That doesn't matter. What matters is how that ass makes you feel. If you feel like the best person in the world when you're with him, that's what makes you like him. It really isn't about how nice a person he is at all."I ran my tongue over my bottom lip. "I like it. It's like the selfish person's guide to love. It's not you, baby, it's me I'm in love with.”

“Everybody has a soul." I turn to Pelly. "And that means you, too." "I'm not so sure of that," he says. "What does it feel like?" "Having a soul?" I look at Maxine, but she only shrugs. "I don't know," I tell Pelly. "I don't have anything to compare it to- you know, what not having a sould would feel like." We fall into a kind of awkward silence. I don't know about the others, but I'm working on what a soul is and not coming up with a whole lot. I mean, I just always thought of it as me- what I feel like being me. But surely Pelly feels like himself, so that means he's got a soul right? But if that's not your soul, then what is? It's weird and not something you really think about, is it?”

“Everyone always knows what they're doing," he says abruptly, still not looking up from his hands, the little plastic pot and the old tattoo and the new white dressing on his left wrist. "You know what you're doing, you got your work and your friends and everything and miserable headfucky little teenage girly boys think you're amazing and, I don't know, you might've saved my life, who knows? I might be dead if it weren't for you and Olly but people can't keep looking after me all the time cos that ain't healthy neither, that's just as bad as people not giving a fuck at all. And, like... I'm trying to sort my head out and be a proper grown-up and get my degree and go to work and look after them kids and make sure my dad ain't kicking my sister round the house like a football but it's just so hard all the time, and I know I ain't got no right to complain cos that's just life, ain't it? Everyone's the same, least I ain't got money worries or nothing. I just don't know what I'm doing, everything's too hard. I can try and try forever but I can't be good enough for no one so what the fuck's the point?”