“I throw my head back and laugh long and hard. Then I lean in and whisper in her ear, "You don't know who you're fucking with, princess. Ain't no one do bad like I do.”

“You don’t know who you’re fucking with, princess. Ain’t no one do bad like I do.”

“Everyone always knows what they're doing," he says abruptly, still not looking up from his hands, the little plastic pot and the old tattoo and the new white dressing on his left wrist. "You know what you're doing, you got your work and your friends and everything and miserable headfucky little teenage girly boys think you're amazing and, I don't know, you might've saved my life, who knows? I might be dead if it weren't for you and Olly but people can't keep looking after me all the time cos that ain't healthy neither, that's just as bad as people not giving a fuck at all. And, like... I'm trying to sort my head out and be a proper grown-up and get my degree and go to work and look after them kids and make sure my dad ain't kicking my sister round the house like a football but it's just so hard all the time, and I know I ain't got no right to complain cos that's just life, ain't it? Everyone's the same, least I ain't got money worries or nothing. I just don't know what I'm doing, everything's too hard. I can try and try forever but I can't be good enough for no one so what the fuck's the point?”

“She leans over an says things that make him throw his head back an laugh like he never heard nuthin so funny in his life. It's sick-makin. Or it would be, if I cared. Which I don't. Liar, whispers the voice inside my head. Liar, liar, liar.”

“I haven't yet figured out who I want to be, dear," Ruth says, answering both my questions, and then throws her head back in a hearty, unselfconscious laugh. "I'm not kidding. I haven't figure it out yet. But don't tell my daughters that. I lie to them every day. I tell them they will figure it out, with time. To just keep doing what they are doing. But let me let you in on a little secret, because I think you can handle it.' She leans in to whisper in my ear.All parents lie to their children. It's our duty. But the truth of the matter is, I don't think many of us know what we are doing. We all walk around much of the time confused and very much alone.”

“I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing, ace, but this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde shit ain't cutting it with me.”