“This just didn’t happen to girls like me. This just didn’t happen to anyone.”

“I could have screamed, but I didn’t. I could have fought, but I didn’t. I just lay there and let it happen, watching the winter-white sky go gray above me.”

“Forgetting’s not something you do, it happens to you. Only it didn’t happen to me.”

“I told him I didn’t want to hurt him, or anyone else. I just feel that sometimes I am better company only to myself, because of what is happening in my life, than I am or would be to anyone else.”

“Father was always getting into scrapes when he was a lad. But the worst scrape he ever hot hisself into was the war, First World War. And just like with the swallow’s eggs, he didn’t want to fight anyone. It just happened. This time it was all on account of the horse. See, he didn’t go off to the war because he wanted to fight for King and Country like lots of others did. It wasn’t like that. He went because his horse went, because Joey went.”

“Earthquakes just happen. Tornadoes just happen. Your tongue does not just happen to fall into some other girls mouth!”