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

You're gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented candle

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

He has found himself more and more reliant on her at exactly the point that she has become less available to him.

The problem with all these fiercely individualistic girls was that they were all exactly the same.

I can't believe it's actually happening. This is independent adulthood, this is what it feels like. Shouldn't there be some sort of ritual? In certain remote African tribes there'd be some incredible four day rites of passage ceremony involving tattooing and potent hallucinogenic drugs extracted from tree-frogs, and village elders smearing my body with monkey blood, but here,rites of passage is all about three new pairs of pants and stuffing your duvet in a bin-liner.

A joke was not a single-use item but something you brought out again and again until it fell apart in your hand like a cheap umbrella.