“He felt that he was still groping in the dark; he had chosen his path but kept looking back, wondering whether he had misread the signs, whether he should not have taken the other way.”

“She kept asking herself whether, if he had looked cleaner, she might have been more concerned; whether, on some subliminal level, she had confused his obvious signs of neglect with street-smartness, toughness and resilience.”

“Jake had never felt like such a fool for keeping a promise. He'd broken plenty of others he should have kept. Why had he kept one he should have broken?”

“No, I'm fine,' said Harry, wondering why he kept telling people this, and wondering whether he had ever been less fine.”

“He wondered whether he had done right. He was dissatisfied with himself and with all his circumstances. He asked himself dully whether whenever you got your way you wished afterwards that you hadn't”

“When she had gone upstairs, he walked to a window and stood looking up at the sky. His head thrown back, he felt the pull of his throat muscles and he wondered whether the peculiar solemnity of looking at the sky comes, not from what one contemplates, but from that uplift of one's head.”