It's the face itself that I love, not that face at twenty-eight or thirty-four or forty-three. It's that face.

I think what it is is, if you're in school and you're not that bright or good-looking or popular or whatever, and one day you say something and someone laughs, well, you sort of grab onto it, don't you? You think, well I run funny and I've got this stupid big face and big thighs and no-one fancies me, but at least I can make people laugh. And it's such a nice feeling, making someone laugh, that maybe you get a bit reliant on it. Like, if you;re not funny then you're not...anything

She shouldn't speak her thoughts; nothing good ever came of speaking your thoughts.

Afterward, there was some debate as to whether we'd actually "done it properly," which gives you some idea of the awesome skill and artful dexterity of my lovemaking technique.

…she was discovering once again that reading and writing were not the same — you couldn't just soak it up then squeeze it out again.

She made a firm resolution, one of the resolutions she was making almost daily these days. No more sleepovers, no more writing poetry, no more wasting time. Time to tidy up your life. Time to start again.

I think you actually get a kick out of being disappointed and under-achieving, because it's easier, isn't it? Failure and unhappiness is easier because you can make a joke out of it.