“Everything that had happened was all part of the same great big something, it had to happen, I just knew”

“How could I sit here and ask this stranger to help me pick up the facts of my life? The shopping bags had burst and all my things were rolling out over a packed pavement with me scurrying after them, stooping and bumping and tripping: Excuse me, I'm sorry. Could you just...Excuse me.”

“A cat is a responsibility after all. And feeding and keeping and caring about a stupid fat cat isn't much, isn't much in the entirety of what counts for being a person and the huge range of what people do,but it is something. It is something and it's something that's warm and that I still have.”

“We had to keep explaining things, backtracking and filling gaps. We realised our own conversations had evolved into a kind of shorthand, a tidy, neat little minimalism. Covering the whole canvas in broad obvious brushstrokes for outsiders felt like a waste of sounds, time and effort. Speaking with footnotes.”

“It's like they say about soldiers coming back from war. People all around you are dying. Really dying, Eric. You go in for a week's chemotherapy and you're in a ward with people who are really, actually dying, there and then and doing their best to come to terms with it. When the week's up, you go home and you see your family and your friends and everything's normal and familiar. It's too much. You think - one world can't possibly hold both these lives and you feel like you're going to go crazy when you realise the world is that big and it can fill with the most terrible things whenever it wants to.”

“Just tell me i'm not dreaming?"maybe you are," she said. "Probably you are."I don't want to be. Clio, i can't do this on my own."There was a bang.We both jumped, turned towards the Roman bath. A clump of leaves swirled on the surface of the water in a slow spiral.Is there something down there?"Clio nodded. "Yes."What is it?"I don't k now," she said, watching the waters. "Something from down where it gets black."There was another bang.Little waves raced across the littery surface, lapping the bath's mouldy tiled sides.Are you ready? This is it." Clio held me by the tops of my arms and gave me a smile which was meant to be strong and almost was.What? Clee, what's going on?"Bang.”

“Every single cell in the human body replaces itself over a period of seven years. That means there's not even the smallest part of you now that was part of you seven years ago.”