“In the blue sky overhead, larks sang like my heart.”

“Confound my genteel upbringing! I could not think of any name foul enough to call him.”

“Stop it,' he whispered. Hid lidded eyes winced. His hands faltered up to cover his face.Dusty did not stop. 'If I'd known you-if I'd known you when you were alive, I think I would have loved you, too.'Dusty, please stop.' He could barely speak. I think I do love you.' Her voice had dropped to a whisper, because it was a truth like a silver sword. 'I think I do. I cry, too.”

“To her, everything is beautiful in its own way, and everyone is a friend just waiting for her. And somehow it works for her.”

“what's life without a spice of stupidity”

“He was just a sixteen-year old boy who had been killed, a kid whose photo had been in the paper, a kid who would mostly be forgotten by the time the newspaper went into the garbage-yet he was the universe, all the dying, all the crying. He was everyone who had ever died young.”

“I hope that the kind reader recognises this as a despairing attempt at humour.”