It's hard to overestimate the teenage appetite for high drama.

She wondered if she was doomed to be one of those people who spend their lives trying things.

You can't throw away years of your life because it makes a funny anecdote.

I had always been led to believe that ageing was a slow and gradual process, the creep of a glacier. Now I realise that it happens in a rush, like snow falling off a roof.

Who do you think you are, Jane Eyre? Grow up. Be sensible. Don't get carried away.

The future rose up ahead of her, a succession of empty days, each more daunting and unknowable than the one before her.

She realises that if she is to save the show she is going to have to improvise a rousing speech, one of the many Henry V moments that make up her working life.