She glanced at the other diners, all of them going into their act, and thought is this what it all boils down to? Romantic love, is this all it is, a talent show?

What must that be like? To be admired before you’ve even said a word, to be desired two or three hundred times a day by people who have absolutely no idea what you’re like?

I work three days at home, and two days in the British Library or the London Library, just to get out of the house and hide from the children.

Emma was a shocking driver, simultaneously sloppy and petrified, and for the first fifty miles had been absent-mindedly driving with her spectacles on top of her contact lenses so that other traffic loomed menacingly out of nowhere like alien space cruisers.

Once you decide not to worry about that stuff anymore, dating and relationships and love and all that, it's like you're free to get on with real life.

…and Emma felt another small portion of her soul fall away.

I am not up to this. I am not capable. I thought I would be, but I'm not. Some part of me is missing, and I cannot do this.