“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.”

“They had lived and known glory, and then they were ddead. She was alive and they were not, and nothing but a heartbeat separated her from them”

“She tucked the stiff envelope into her pocket and it pressed against her leg all day, reminding her that she had been written to, that she belonged to somebody.”

“Let her be with her memories. Better that than be aware of this reality.”

“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”

“She saw nothing of Winterborne during he days of her recovery: and perhaps on that account her fancy wove about him a more romantic tissue than it could have done if he had stood before her with all the specks and flaws inseparable from concrete humanity”

“She would (if she could) put her arm around the girl she'd been and try to tell her Take it easy, but the girl would not have listened. The girl had no receptors for Take it easy. And besides, "Hey Jude" was on the radio, it was her prayer, her manifesto, almost her dwelling place. She sang it everywhere. The music made her cry then; it makes her cry now. Listening to it now brings back memories so sharp they taste like blood in her mouth.”