“I used to believe everything I read, but now I'm steppin' out.”

“If you're going to play it out of tune, then play it out of tune properly.”

“I knew it was coming. I knew they didn't have the nerve.Three days in and they've got faces like vexed tomatoes, their skins flaking sci-fi style: burnt to fuck. They were an embarrassment; not only to me and the wife and The Fall fans but to their own generation.”

“There was a lot of pretense floating around; not just with aunties and all that but with emotions and how people saw you. They had a point. There's a lot to learn from that generation -- the stoic approach. I think it's disgusting how they've been forgotten about in this way. It's the American hippies' fault, they saw an in there, a way of making money out of bad moods. That's all it is most of the time. You can't expect to feel cock-a-hoop every minute of every day. My mam and dad's generation understood this. They were just thankful the bombs had stopped threatening their lives. They just wanted to get on with living.”

“The second god lived by mountains that flowedBy the blue shiny lit roadsHad forgot what others still tried to grasp”

“... Wait till next year. I know some people might find this depressing, and are understandable impatient for next year to finally come, but I think there's something sweetly hopeful in it. It's comforting in a way, believing that no matter what happens now, the best is still yet to come.”

“I'm not sure I even believe in marriage," Hadley says and he looks surprised."Aren't you on your way to a wedding?""Yeah," she says with a nod. "But that's what I mean."He looks at her blankly."It shouldn't be this big fuss, where you drag everyone halfway across the world to witness your love. If you want to share your life together, fine. But it's between two people, and that should be enough. Why the big show? Why rub it in everyone's faces?"Oliver runs a hand along his jaw, obviously not quite sure what to think. "It sounds like its weddings you don't believe in," he says finally. "Not marriage.""I'm not such a big fan of either at the moment.""I don't know," he says. "I think they're kind of nice.""They're not," she insists. "They're all for show. You shouldn't need to prove anything if you really mean it. It should be a whole lot simpler than that. It should mean something.""I think it does," Oliver says quietly. "It's a promise.""I guess so," she says, unable to keep the sigh out of her voice. "But not everyone keeps that promise." she looks over toward the woman, still fast asleep. "Not everyone makes it fifty-two years, and if you do, it doesn't matter that you once stood in front of all those people and said that you would. The important part is that you had someone to stick by you all that time. Even when everything sucked.”