“Most people, if they were generous, were so because they thought life was short and that one must make the most of it. Sid Baxter was generous because he knew that life was long. It went on and on even when you had no use for it anymore. It was happiness, not life, that was short, and when it visited - in the form of a fine evening spent talking with a friend - he honoured it.”

“DNA tells you all the secrets of life,’ he used to say. Except for one—how to live it.”

“They sat quietly together for a few minutes, Joe holding Fiona's hand, Fiona sniffling. No flowery words, no platitudes passed between them. Joe would have done anything to ease her suffering, but he knew nothing he might do, or say, could. Her grief would run its course, like a fever, and release her when it was spent. He would not shush her or tell her it was God's will and that her da was better off. That was rubbish and they both knew it. When something hurt as bad as this, you had to let it hurt. There were no shortcuts.”

“There were nights when I got nothing, [but] I still played. With no one to hear me and no one to pay me, and it did not matter.On those nights, the words were for me alone. They came up unbidden from my heart. They slipped over my tongue and spilled from my mouth. And because of them I, who was nothing and nobody, was a prince of Denmark, a maid of Verona, a queen of Egypt. I was a sour misanthrope, a beetling hypocrite, a conjurer's daughter, a mad and murderous king.It was dark and it was cold on those nights. The world was harsh and I was hungry. Yet I had such joy from the words. Such joy.There were times when I lifted my face to the sky, stretched my arms wide to the winter night, and laughed out loud, so happy was I.The memory of it makes me laugh now, but not from happiness.Be careful what you show the world.You never know when the wolf is watching.”

“There were times when I lifted my face to the sky, stretched my arms wide to the winter night, and laughed out loud, so happy was I.The memory of it makes me laugh now, but not from happiness.Be careful what you show the world.You never know when the wolf is watching.”

“Why do you write?' Because I love words and stories so much. Because I would be grief stricken every day of my life if I couldn't write. Because I'm obsessed and compelled. Because I'd be utterly useless at anything else.”

“Life, Rose well knew, could throw some hard punches at you, but nothing hurt as much as losing a child, or seeing one of your children hurt and suffering. Becoming a parent changed you forever, as nothing else could. Not good or bad fortune. Not friendships. Not even a man or a woman.”