“This is how we leave the world,with the heart weeping,and the hope that distancebrings the solving wonderof one last clear viewbefore that long sleepabout the weather's changes”

“Then he asked if I didn’t like things changing. And I said I wouldn’t mind things changing if I became an astronaut, for example, which is one of the biggest changes you can imagine, apart from becoming a girl or dying.”

“How pleased we are to have our eyes opened but how easily we close them again.”

“People think that alien spaceships would be solid and made of metal and have lights all over them and move slowly through the sky because that is how we would build a spaceship if we were able to build one that big. But aliens, if they exist, would probably be very different from us. They might look like big slugs, or be flat like reflections. Or they might be bigger than planets. Or they might not have bodies at all. They might just be information, like in a computer. And their spaceships might look like clouds, or be made up of unconnected objects like dust or leaves.”

“I liked maths because it meant solving problems, and these problems were difficult and interesting but there was always a straightforward answer at the end”

“Maybe it wasn't God after all, maybe it was the heart which punished one with such exquisite accuracy.”

“And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery…and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything.”