“You're going to go living. Because living is the challenge, Josie. Dying is so easy. Sometimes it only takes ten seconds to die. But living? That can take eighty years and you do something in that time, whether it's giving birth to a baby or being a housewife or a barrister or a soldier. You've accomplished something. To throw that away at such a young age, to have no hope, is the biggest tragedy.”

“Living is the challenge. Not dying. Dying is so easy. Sometimes it only takes ten seconds to die. But living? That can take you eighty years and you do something in that time.”

“I can live without you,’ she said. ‘I can live without a man I’ve only known for one hundred and eighty days.’‘And how have those calculations helped?’ he demanded to know.She didn’t respond except for a look down her nose at him and a curl of her lip. So much for the angry half-spirits being responsible for the savages within them both. This was pure Quintana. ‘Then step away,’ he taunted. ‘If you can live without me, step away.’He felt her warm breath on his throat.‘Because you can’t,’ he said. ‘You think you can, but we’re bound, and not just by the gods or by a curse or even by our son. We are bound by our free will. And you can’t step away, because you are not willing.’He bent, his mouth close to hers.‘Step away,’ he whispered. ‘If you step away I’ll learn from you. I’ll find the desire in me to live without you. Much the same as you want to live without me.”

“So we get a karaoke machine.On the first night, the year tens stage a competition, insisting that every member of the House has to be involved, so we clear the year-seven and -eight dorms and wait for our turn. Raffy is on second and does an impressive job of "I Can''t Live, If Living Means Without You" but then one of the seniors points out to her that she's chosen a dependency song and Raffy spends the whole night neuroticising about it."I just worked out that I don't have ambition," she says while one of the year eights sings tearfully, "Am I Not Pretty Enough?" I start compiling a list of all the kids I should be recommending to the school counsellor, based on their song choices."I think she's reading a little to much into it, Raf.""No she isn't. Because do you know what my second and third choices were? 'Don't Leave Me This Way' and 'I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself.'""Mary Grace chose 'Brown-eyed Girl' and she's got blue eyes and Serina sang 'It's Raining Men' and she's a lesbian. You're taking this way too seriously. Let it go.”

“Once, last year, I started going through my sins and Father Stephen said, "Oh, it's you, Josie." Can you believe it? He recognised me by my sins. I'm so boring that I can't even change my sins from term to term.”

“What is it? A prize or something?No. It's not a prize and I'm not a prize. But it's mine. It belongs to me and I can only give it away once, and I want to be so sure when it happens. I don't want to say that the first time for me was bad or it didn't mean a thing.”

“I would rather die than ever see you suffering this way. I don't want you or any child I ever have or any woman I ever love to go through or feel what you're going through, but it's happened and I don't know what to do.”