However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I've always been. Hard to explain that to the young. we may look truly reptilian, but we're not a separate tribe.

He had never before felt so self-consciously young, nor experienced such appetite, such impatience for the story to begin.

It marked the beginning and, of course, an end. At that moment a chapter, no, a whole stage of my closed. Had I known, and had there been a spare second or two, I might have allowed myself a little nostalgia.

Dying in unfamiliar surroundings miles away from home, it cannot possibly be good. There is a great sadness about that I think.

The luxury of being half-asleep, exploring the fringes of psychosis in safety.

Above all, she wanted to look as though she had not given the matter a moment's thought, and that would take time.

Briony began to understand the chasm that lay between an idea and its execution.