Be nice wont you?" "I am nice, I'm always nice." "But not too nice. I mean don't make a religion out of it, niceness.

…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.

[He] didn’t like to think of himself as vain, but there were definitely times when he wished there was someone on hand to take his photograph.

I love him, she thought. I'm just not in love with him and also I don't love him. I've tried, I've strained to love him but I can't. I am building a life with a man I don't love, and I don't know what to do about it.

...and once again Dexter is struck by how easy conversation can be when no-one is in their right mind

Maybe I've just read too many novels. In novels, alcoholics are always attractive and fuuny and charming and complex, like Sebastian Flyte or ABe North in Tender in the Night, and they're drinking because of a deep, unquenchable sadness of the soul, or the terrible legacy of the First World War, whereas I just get drunk because I'm thirsty, and I like the taste of lager.

Maybe we've grown out of each other.