“I don't know everything I feel, but I do know this. You mustn't ever want anyone but me, Big Science. If you look at any other girl I'll kill her.”

“Stamp, your name is to be Laura. I'm sharing my name with you. I'm putting my power into you and you must do my work. Don't listen to anyone but me. You are to be my command laid on my enemy. you'll make a hole in him through which he'll drip away until he runs dry. As he drips out darkness, we'll smile together, me inside, you outside. We'll crush him between our smiles.”

“What's happened to the world? she was thinking. Everything has turned terrible...and the bits that aren't terrible have gone mad. I don't understand anything anymore.”

“It changes you for ever, but you are changing for ever anyway.”

“Will you still love me when I'm a monster?”

“Something is going to happen, Laura thought. She was going to be kissed. On one side of a kiss was childhood, sunshine,innocence, toys and, on the other, people embracing, darkness, passion and the admittance of a person who, no matter how loved, must always have a quality of otherness, not only to her confidence, but somehow inside her sealing skin.”

“Reading is very creative - it's not just a passive thing. I write a story; it goes out into the world; somebody reads it and, by reading it, completes it.”