“...he hadn't wanted to go through life heartsick for something he could not have.”

“It was watching Madeline Alby eat cheese with every ounce of her being, like it was the first and best time, that made him realize that he had never really tasted cheese, or crackers, or life. And he didn't want his daughter to live that way. He'd moved her into her own room the night before...He hadn't slept well, and had gotten up five times during the night to check on her, only to find her sleeping peacefully, but he could lose a little sleep if Sophie could go through life without his fears and limitations. He wanted her to experience all the glorious cheese of life.”

“It was his reaction when I mention I was from Hailsham. He'd just come through his third donation, it hadn't gone well, and he must have known he wan't going to make it. He could hardly breathe, but he looked towards me and said: "Hailsham. I bet that was a beautiful place.”

“Life, he decided, was for living, not for having, and he wanted to experience every moment that he could.”

“Ruith?"He looked at her with a smile. "Aye, my love?""Are you sure?"He looked at her, puzzled, for a moment, then apparently he realized what she was asking. "How could you ask?""Because when a gel wants something very badly, she tends to want to avoid breaking her heart over the false hope of having it."His breath caught. If she hadn't known better, she would have thought he was blinking rapidly from something besides the smoke the passageway.”

“The feeling he had had all his young life - that he was brought on this earth for something special - had not left Alexander, not quite; what it did was dissipate inside him, became translucent in his blood vessels. It no longer pulsed through his body. He was no longer filled with a sense of purpose as he traveled through his adolescence. He was filled with a sense of despair.My childhood was good, he thought. And my adolescence - I could have lived through it all. I could have lived through it all if only I continued to have the feeling that at the end of childhood, at the end of adolescence, there was something else in this life that would be mine, that I could make with my bare hands, and once I had made it, I could say, I did this to my life. I made my life so.Hope.It was gone from Alexander on this sunny crisp Sunday, and the feeling of purpose had vanished, was vanquished in his veins.”