“Books should be like magical jewelled boxes. It’s the writer’s job to tell the story. My job [the artist] is to make you want to pick up the box, and to peer inside.”

“To a bibliophile, there is but one thing better than a box of new books, and that is a box of old ones.”

“Also: people pretended not to want what they wanted. Pretending tried to hide the will. That was the secret of adult life, the undisclosed motor of the whole thing. People wanted what they wanted. They did what they could to get it. It wasn't complicated. Kenny knew that was the last step he needed to take before he could be an adult: he had to learn what he wanted, then had to learn to want what he wanted.”

“It takes knowledge and experience to say precisely and consisely what is true and what is needed. Scholarship often excels in lofty learning and deep digging to emphasise what we knew all along. Adrian Hawkes' little book, based on real life, bring us what so many don't know and greatly need to know. I would not be ashamed to put it alongside many weighty volumes on my study shelves.”

“Because all books ARE the Book of Job -- man in the crucible like Jack in the Box....”

“I don't go to school, I don't have parents, I came from the sea to be your husband.”

“It was interesting, how much of adult life consisted of pretending.”