“A siren is the sound of the twenty-first-century cavalry on the way.”

“An explosion in space makes no sound at all.”

“Mum said no one has ever called me by my first name so I've always assumed that even as a baby they could tell I wasn't an Arabella, a name with loops and flourishes in black-inked calligraphy; a name that contains within it girls called Bella or Bells or Belle - so many beautiful possibilities. No, from the start I was clearly a Beatrice, sensible and unembellished in Times New Roman, with no one hiding inside.”

“There was no harbor for hope.”

“I threw everything we had together - the strong roots and stems and leaves and beautiful soft blossoms of sisterhood - into the earth with you. And I was left standing on the edge, so diminished by the loss that I thought I could no longer be there.”

“Motherhood isn't soft and cozy and sweet; it's selfish ferocity, red in tooth and claw.”

“However hard and however long we love someone who has died, they can never love us back. At least that is how it feels...”