“It's the fragment of your past that explains why you have lived your life the way you have done and made the mistakes that you have made”

“Like so many plain cups on the shelves. You can reach for them, use them without thinking. Most of them don't matter. Sometimes you lose your grip on one of them and it falls and smashes to piece, and you shrug and say to yourself, what a pity. Then you reach for the cup that you use every day, one that you love and use so often that as you stretch out your hand it is already making the shape that fits its curve. You are certain that yesterday it was in its proper place, but now there is nothing. Just air. You have lost something that was so familiar, so much a part of your life that you were not even looking for it. Just expecting it to be there, as always.”

“Learning is important. It is a way to make a life better for yourself and your family.”

“She had an English boyfriend who called her more often than she needed to hear from him, a savings account, a mobile phone, an Oyster Card, and a place to live that made her feel as if she was in a movie. She was a London girl.”

“Death, when it's right there it doesn't seem too huge and terrible to let into your mind.”

“I am afraid of losing what I have already valued.”

“As well as remembering too little, I have seen too much”