“It was as Nazruddin had said, when I asked him about visas and he had said that bank notes were better. 'You can always get into those places. What is hard is to get out. That is a private fight. Everybody has to find his own way.”

“At That Moment, it seemed the whole world cared what happened to him. All those people were hugging him and petting his hair. Everybody asked if he was okay.It seemed that moment would last forever. That you had to risk your life to get love. You had to get right to the edge of death to ever be saved.”

“I told the Icelandic prime minister that it appeared that large sums of money had been taken out of the UK from the Kaupthing branches, which was a serious breach of FSA regulations. The FSA had to find out by the end of the afternoon whether or not that breach had taken place. If it had, they would close the bank. He asked whether the money was needed today and how much it was. I said it was about £600 million, small beer for us but a huge amount for him. It was urgent, I said, that he look into it immediately. His response rang alarm bells. He asked if there was any chance that the amount could be negotiated down. I said there was no chance and that the money had to be returned before the end of the weekend. I suspected we would end up having to close the banks the following week.”

“I told Dad about yesterday...I told him how I made all those mistakes.'But you kept on playing?' Dad said. His eyes got wide when he said it. I could tell he was proud.'Everybody does,' I said. 'You can't just get up and walk away every time you mess up. You'd never get anywhere.”

“I don't forgive him," I said."Hell, no, you don't. And why should you? So he can feel better? Get on with his life? And what's he done to help you get on with yours?”

“Willadee asked him if he thought maybe it should say HAPPY EVER AFTER, but Samuel said no, he thought happiness was like any other miracle. The more you talked about it, the less people believed it was real. It was like Swan said, some things, everybody just had to find out about for themselves.”