“You were never one to moon over handsome boys, or talk about balls and parties, or dream about your future husband.”“That was because of Merripen,” Win admitted. “He was all I ever wanted.”

“You're dead," I repeated. "So why are you in my dream?"He raised the bill of his olive drab ball cap with one finger. " Good question. Morbid, isn't it?""What?""Dreaming about dead peolpe. Creepy. You ever see a therapist about that?""I'm not -" Even in dreams, I couldn't win an argument. Even when he was dead.”

“At a dinner party in north London, I listened to friends bragging about buying Porsches with their bonuses and sending out from their offices for pizzas and clean shirts because they were clinching a deal and could not leave their desks. I wanted to tell them of a place where every family had lost a son or a husband or had a leg blown off, almost every child seen someone die in a rocket attack and where a small boy had told me his dream was to have a brightly coloured ball. But, when I began to talk about Afghanistan, I watched eyes glaze and felt as if I was trying to have a conversation about a movie no one else had seen.”

“The stories never said why she was wicked. It was enough to be an old woman, enough to be all alone, enough to look strange because you have no teeth. It was enough to be called a witch. If it came to that, the book never gave you the evidence of anything. It talked about "a handsome prince"... was he really, or was it just because he was a prince that people called handsome? As for "a girl who was as beautiful as the day was long"... well, which day? In midwinter it hardly ever got light! The stories don't want you to think, they just wanted you to believe what you were told...”

“I will say this one last time Jared and then I never want to talk about this ever again. I loveyou. I don’t care if every man in this room is in love with me because I love you. I don’t want anyone else. Ever. You’re my future now and there is noforce on earth that could change how I feel about us or keep me from you. I will only ever want you for the rest of my life.”

“People who talk about their dreams are actually trying to tell you things about themselves they’d never admit in normal conversation.”