“Jake was close to tears. In that moment he saw the world in its true light, as a place where nothing had ever been any good and nothing of significance done: no art worth a second look, no philosophy of the slightest appositeness, no law but served the state, no history that gave an inkling of how it had been and what had happened. And no love, only egotism, infatuation and lust.”

“The boys were going to a place that none had ever been before, to serve an order that had been the enemy of their kith and kin for thousands of years, yet Jon saw no tears, heard no wailing mothers. These are winter's people, [...] tears freeze upon your cheeks where they come from.”

“Bird, don't sound so crushed. The fact that I had never had sex before can only have been significant for me, if it had any meaning at all-it had nothing to do with you.”

“There was no good or bad connected with anything any more.......He regretted nothing; wanted nothing. He was simply existing, and the way things were was the way they had always been and always would be. He didn't care any more. He did what had to be done, and endured in a timeless present, without past or future.”

“What had passed between them had been real and true and lived. Not like the silly infatuation she had felt for [him] when she was 16, or the foolish attraction she’d felt. Theirs had been a true love. Forged and built and earned.”

“How old was More when Richard succeeded?He was five.When that dramatic council scene had taken place at the Tower, Thomas More had been five years old. He had been only eight when Richard died at Bosworth.Everything in that history had been hearsay.”