Find the thing you love, and do it with all your heart, to the absolute best of your ability, no matter what people say.

All his words and actions would now be fit for his daughter’s ears and eyes. Life would be lived as if under [her] constant scrutiny. He would never do anything that might cause her pain or anxiety or embarrassment and there would be nothing, absolutely nothing in his life to be ashamed of anymore.

I'm not the consolation prize, Dex. I'm not something you resort to. I happen to think I'm worth more than that.

Sometimes I wish that I hadn't learned how to crochet," I say, and Alice laughs. Obviously she thinks I'm joking, which is maybe for the best.

I had made this mistake once before, on a school trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum, when I followed a sign marked WOMEN, thinking it was an exhibition on the changing roles of women in society, and actually ended up standing in the ladies' toilets.

Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you

but they had also settled into the maddening familiarity of friendship; maddening for her at least.