“They were soft-centered, emotional beings wrapped in a terrified carapace, that even though they might appear rational and collected on paper, so focused that you wanted to marvel at their promise and maturity, they were lurching, turbulent muddles of conflict in their three-dimensional lives...the creative ones were desperately afraid they were talentless, and the intellectuals deeply suspected they weren't brilliant, and that every single one of them felt ugly and stupid and utterly fake.”

“After years of pretending at emotions, he'd grown to appreciate their mystery, their chaos and randomness. Sometimes they were predictable, one-dimensional, almost stupid - other times they were so confounding, complex, and exquisite that he was convinced humans really were as special as they thought themselves to be.”

“These women were like her sisters. Even if she wanted desperately to be free of them. Sometimes the strongest prisons were the ones created by the people you loved the most.”

“You stupid woman, if rationality were the criterion for things being allowed to exist, the world would be one gigantic field of soya beans! ”

“Women were brought up to believe that men were the answer. They weren't. They weren't even one of the questions. ”

“Broadly, therefore, the three even now lurching across the deserted planks of the Brass Bridge were dead drunk assassins and the men behind them were bent on inserting the significant comma.”