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.

You know what i can't understand? You have all these people telling you all the time how great you are, smart and funny and talented and all that, i mean endlessly, i've been telling you for years. So why don't you believe it? why do you think people say that stuff, Em? Do you think it's a conspiracy, people secretly ganging up to be nice about you?

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.

She had reached a turning point. She no longer believed that a situation could be made better by writing a poem about it.

He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph.

Letters, like compilation tapes, were really vehicles for unexpressed emotions and she was clearly putting far too much time and energy into them.

Oh you know me. I have no emotions. I'm a robot. Or a nun. A robot nun.