By then Esthappen and Rahel had learned that the world had other ways of breaking men. They were already familiar with the smell. Sicksweet. Like old roses on a breeze.

States have invested themselves with the right to legitimise violence - so who gets criminalised and delegitimised? Only - or well that's excessive - usually, the resistance.

Fiction is the most joyous, beautiful, sophisticated, wonderful thing in the world.

He held her as though she was a gift. Given to him in love. Something still and small. Unbearably precious.

A sparrow lay dead on the backseat. She had found her way through a hole in the windscreen, tempted by some seat-sponge for her nest. She never found her way out. No one noticed her panicked car-window appeals. She died on the backseat, with her legs in the air. Like a joke.

People can be extraordinarily resilient and show extraordinary grace and humour even in moments of tribulation. I've always found that it's much easier for people who are not terribly, badly off to lose hope and to be pessimistic. I suppose that when you are in a really serious situation, you have to be present, you have to think about it, there's not much scope for self-pity.

What is happening to our world is almost too colossal for human comprehension to contain...To contemplate its girth and its circumference, to attempt to define it, to try and fight it all at once, is impossible. The only way to combat it is by fighting specific wars in specific ways.