“Does that help? Probably not, unless you are sane enough to believe that the truth about anyone is disappointing, the truth about me especially so.”

“You run the risk of losing anyone who is worth spending timewith, unless you are so paranoid about loss that you choose someone unlosable, somebody who couldnot possibly appeal to anybody else at all.”

“The truth about autobiographical songs, he realized, was that you had to make the present become the past, somehow: you had to take a feeling or a friend or a woman and turn whatever it was into something that was over, so that you could be definitive about it. You had to put it in a glass case and look at it and think about it until it gave up its meaning.”

“The truth about life was that nothing ever ended until you died, and even then you just left a whole bunch of unresolved narratives behind you.”

“Did I do and say these things? Yes, I did. Are there any mitigating circumstances? Not really, unless any circumstances {in other words, context) can be regarded as mitigating. And before you judge, although you have probably already done so, go away and write down the four worst things you have done to a partner, even if - especially if - your partner doesn't know about them. Don't dress things up, or try to explain them; just write them down, in a list, in the plainest language possible. Finished? Ok, so who's the arsehole now?”

“Defeated misery is what all sport is about, eventually, if you follow the story for long enough; all sportsmen know this.”

“The truth will set you free. Either that or it'll get you a punch in the nose. ”