She made you decent, and in return you made her so happy

Happyish. Well, happyish isn't so bad.' 'It's the most we can hope for.

I'm trying to be inspiring! I'm trying to lift your grubby soul for the great adventure that lies ahead of you!

For some time now she has had the conviction that life is about to change if only because it must. . . .

A screenplay is really an instruction manual, and it can be interpreted in any number of ways. The casting, the choice of location, the costumes and make-up, the actors' reading of a line or emphasis of a word, the choice of lens and the pace of the cutting - these are all part of the translation.

For the best part of my childhood I visited the local library three or four times a week, hunching in the stacks on a foam rubber stool and devouring children's fiction, classics, salacious thrillers, horror and sci-fi, books about cinema and origami and natural history, to the point where my parents encouraged me to read a little less.

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