“...Love, my lads! And above all, love pretty, charming girls; they are the remedy for evil, they give a sweet smell to rottenness, they exchange life for death...Love, my lads!”

“Look," she sighed. "You might be a lovely lad, in fairness you look like a lovely lad, but I can't take the chance. My kids wouldn't even be able to remember what I was wearing to tell the police. And all the recent photographs of me are bad, very jowly. I couldn't have them stuck to the lamp posts around the city. On your way, son." (Woman to Matt, when he tried to give her a lift.)”

“The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that.”

“Nathaniel Strider could never love. He's obviously discovered early on that girls' hearts were vulnerable and all a lad needed was a penetrating gaze and a disarming smile and the world was at his feet.”

“'Twas on an evening fair I went to take the air,I heard a maid making her moan;Said, 'Saw ye my father? Or saw ye my mother? Or saw ye my brother John?Or saw ye the lad I that I love best,And his name it is Sweet William?”

“I - will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all.”