“All the Kamals were fluent in irritation. They loved each other but were almost always annoyed by each other, in ways that were both generalised and existential (why is he like that?) and also highly specific (how hard is it to remember to put the top back on the yoghurt?).”

“They seek each other out, these people of such specific like mind. They tell of how they found the circus, how those first few steps were like magic.”

“Our mouths were fluent in the language of each other and we moved with one mind and shared the same breath.”

“They were now both ready, not to begin from scratch, but to continue with a love that had survived for thirteen years in hibernation. They were no longer travellers without baggage. They were no longer twenty. They'd both been around the block a bit and had suffered without the other. They'd both lost their way without the other. Each had tried to find love with other people.But all that was now finished.”

“And we clung to each other like we were drowning because, in a way, we were.”

“Both Averill and Bayar were like actors speaking lines for their audience and not to each other.”