“I was in my thirties before I learnt that I too would prefer not to see what I could no longer have”

“When I was a girl I had this strong feeling that I didn't belong anywhere,... It was in my head, what I thought and dreamt, what I believed..., that's where I belonged, that was my country.”

“And somehow, somewhere along the track, I went numb. I couldn’t say what it was & didn’t dare try. How do you explain the sense of being made to feel improper ? I withdrew into a watchful rectitude, anxious to please, risking nothing. I followed the outline of my life, carefully rehearsing form without conviction, like a bishop who can’t see that his faith has become an act.”

“Surviving is the strongest memory I have; the sense of having walked on water.”

“I came home at dusk with my ears ringing from the quiet.”

“That was the simple objective, being airborne, up longer, up higher, more casually & with more fuck off elegance than anyone else in the world. I never understood the rules or the science of it but I recognized the single-mindedness it took to match risk with nerve come what may. Some endeavours require a kind of egotism, a near autistic narrowness. Everything conspires against you – the habits of physics, the impulse to flee - & you’re weighed down by every dollop of commonsense dished up. Everyone will tell you your goal is impossible, pointless, stupid, wasteful so you hang tough. You back yourself & only yourself. This idiot resolve is all you have.”

“I have never been a violent man. Just a little creepy, it seems.”