This commonplace cycle of falling asleep and waking, in darkness, under private cover, with another creature, a pale soft tender mammal, putting faces together in a ritual of affection, briefly settled in the eternal necessities of warmth, comfort, safety, crossing limbs to draw nearer - a simple daily consolation, almost too obvious, easy to forget by daylight.

At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write.

Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it's okay to be a boy; for girls it's like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading.

No one knew about the squirrel’s skull beneath Briony bed, but no one wanted to know.

Narrative tension is primarily about withholding information.

It was always the view of my parents...that hot weather encouraged loose morals among young people.

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