“It's hilarious to recognize how completely another person resembles your imperfect self.”

“Briony said reasonably, 'How can you hate plays?''It's just showing off.' Pierrot shrugged as he delivered this self-evident truth.”

“It's the essence of a degenerating mind periodically, to lose all sense of continuous self, and therefore any regard for what others think of your lack of continuity.”

“Waiting. Simply one person doing nothing, over time, while another approached.”

“I’ll wait for you. Come back.The words were not meaningless, but they didn’t touch him now.It was clear enough - one person waiting for another was like an arithmetical sum, and just as empty of emotion.Waiting.Simply one person doing nothing, over time, while another approached. Waiting was a heavy word.”

“But how to do feelings? All very well to write "She felt sad", or describe what a sad person might do, but what of sadness itself, how was that put across so it could be felt in all its lowering immediacy? Even harder was the threat, or the confusion of feeling contradictory things.”

“How guilt refined the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime.”