“And then to win the prize had been incredible. She felt like she was being seen, actually being seen, for the first time in the endless years of being a mother and a wife.”

“She was happier than I'd ever seen her, and for the first time, I felt like a normal, whole human being instead of some broken, angry man.”

“It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.”

“Being nothing felt quite the same as being something. Maybe she had never been something at all.”

“Fraser's mother, Janice, was actually quite a happy soul but she had to hide it because, like all pseudo intellectuals, she thought being cheery made her look stupid, which of course she was for believing that rubbish in the first place.She like to talk about Sartre sometimes, just as insurance.”

“She didn't like being twelve. It felt like someplace between who she'd been and who she was about to be. It felt like no place at all.”