“Jonas, Tate’s teenaged son … looking like mini-Tate, giving me the understanding that in a few years, me and every woman over twenty-five years of age in Carnal would be moved to become a cougar.”

“Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building.”

“Mama was amazing like that; I spent most of my teenage years assuming that she knew nothing about me, and all of my twenties realizing that she knew everything.”

“A hotel mini bar allows you to see what a can of Pepsi will cost in twenty years.”

“Even sentenced to twenty-five years in prison Ted didn’t get what he deserved. Maybe his prison mates would give it to him.”

“The value of money is subjective, depending on age. At the age of one, one multiplies the actual sum by 145,000, making one pound seem like 145,000 pounds to a one-year-old. At seven – Bertie’s age – the multiplier is 24, so that five pounds seems like 120 pounds. At the age of twenty four, five pounds is five pounds; at forty five it is divided by 5, so that it seems like one pound and one pound seems like twenty pence. (All figures courtesy of Scottish Government Advice Leaflet: Handling your Money.)”