“Warning, When I'm An Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple!”

“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple with a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves and satin sandles, and say we've no money for butter.I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bellsAnd run my stick along the public railingsAnd make up for the sobriety of my youth.I shall go out in my slippers in the rainand pick flowers in other people's gardensAnd learn to spit.You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fatAnd eat three pounds of sausages at a goOr only bread and pickle for a weekAnd hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes.But now we must have clothes that keep us dryAnd pay our rent and not swear in the streetAnd set a good example for the children.”

“But maybe I ought to practise a little now?So people who know me are not too shocked and surprisedWhen suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.”

“I'm sorry for Cathleen. She can be... difficult." Two-year-olds were difficult. That woman was a terrorist.”

“I'm going because my life was crap until I met you. I'm going because I don't want to be here when you're not, still living with my mum and nothing being any different. I wouldn't even be thinking about going if it hadn't been for you.”

“I wondered if this was the way old crushes died, with a whimper, slowly, and then, just like that—gone.”

“And after, when it was bedtime, I would sing, “We love you, Conrad, oh yes we do. We love you, Conrad, and we’ll be true” into the bathroom mirror with a mouthful of toothpaste. I would sing my eight-nine-ten-year-old heart out. But I wasn’t singing to Conrad Birdie. I was singing to my Conrad. Conrad Beck Fisher, the boy of my preteen dreams.”