“Interestingly, one mate of mine, a proper leftie, in his heyday all Red Wedge and right-on punch-ups, was melancholy. "I thought I'd be overjoyed, but really it's just … another one bites the dust …" This demonstrates, I suppose, that if you opposed Thatcher's ideas it was likely because of their lack of compassion, which is really just a word for love. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies.”

“If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies.”

“Any other vexations to report?" he asks."I love the word 'vexations.'""It's the 'x.' Nice to jump off a 'v' and bite into an 'x' like that.""Just the usual ones," she says."How was the weekend?""Vexing. Not really, I just wanted to say it. You?”

“Maybe the world was like a revolving door, it occurred to him as his consciousness was fading away. And which section you ended up in was just a matter of where your foot happened to fall...And there was no logical continuity from one section to another. And it was because of this lack of logical continuity that choices really didn't mean very much.”

“Well, sometimes love seems easy. Like..it's easy to love rain...and hawks. And it's easy to love wild plums...and the moon. But with people, seems like love's a hard thing to know. It gets all mixed up. I mean, you can love one person in one way and another person in another way. But how do you know you love the right one in every way?”

“You don't need meat at every meal," Riley offered, forking another bite of salad into his mouth and inwardly agreeing with Jack that it was certainly lacking something. Jack was quiet for all of ten seconds, and then he couldn't hold in his opinion one second more. "Are you really a Texan? I mean, really? Riley, if I have a headache, I'd put bacon around an aspirin before I take it.”