“No one knew about the squirrel’s skull beneath her bed, but no one wanted to know.”

“But hidden drawers, lockable diaries and cryptographic systems could not conceal from Briony the simple truth: she had no secrets. Her wish for a harmonious, organised world denied her the reckless possibilities of wrongdoing. Mayhem and destruction were too chaotic for her tastes, and she did not have it in her to be cruel. Her effective status as an only child, as well as the relative isolation of the Tallis house, kept her, at least during the long summer holidays, from girlish intrigues with friends. Nothing in her life was sufficiently interesting or shameful to merit hiding; no one knew about the squirrel's skull beneath her bed, but no one wanted to know.”

“But in my defense, I knew enough about her to know I wanted to know everything else; I knew as much about her as she wanted me to know; I knew as much about her as anyone ever knows about anyone. And isn't love just curiosity at the beginning anyway?”

“I knew that most people would consider us too young to talk about lifelong commitments or marriage, but I couldn’t imagine taking her to bed without that promise. Even if it meant never being with her, I didn’t want to have one desperate, hurried, hidden night. I wanted to put a ring on her finger. I wanted a future—or nothing. I knew, in her heart, that she would want that, too”

“She once again thought about how badly she wanted to crawl back beneath the mound of already cooling blankets that covered her bed like an inviting nest.”

“..when the first rubber ball smacked her in the head and made her brains rattle in her skull, she knew that something about this dodgeball game was different”