“It was as if we were having two different conversations. Which wasn’t that surprising after all, as we were clearly having two entirely different experiences of breaking up. His was soft, cushioned; Jude and his friends had broken his fall. Mine was cold, empty and bereft. I was freefalling in space and time, with nobody standing by to stop me hurtling headlong into obscurity.”

“There it was again: “Came in to see us”, as if it were an enjoyable little day trip that lots of people made, just because it was such a nice place to be.”

“It's a strange kind of irony. The things that affect us most are the things we can't remember" (from Swimming Upstream).”

“Readers often tell me after they've read the books, they find it difficult to sum up the plot in a simple way. My response is, "It's a story about the love a father shares for his daughter. All the rest is just filler."- MJ Mancini, on his best-selling trilogy, "Revelation".”

“Anxiety is secretive. He does not trust anyone, not even his friends, Worry, Terror, Doubt and Panic … He likes to visit me late at night when I am alone and exhausted. I have never slept with him, but he kissed me on the forehead once, and I had a headache for two years …”

“His passion she had expected, even his expertise, for a man of his years would not have been without women. She had even, in the long days of yearning, suspected his tenderness, which led him now to kiss her temples and the inner crook of her elbow with the same attention he gave to her lips and breasts. What she had not anticipated was that he would be vulnerable as well.”

“...the coldness settling in his stomach confirmed a truth that had been hiding at the back of his mind. He sat devastated by it, wondering how he could be such a fool. He and Kate were so far apart he might as well be in love with the moon.”