The King walks. He nods. His glance is like God's touch - under it all things spring to life. A wave of his hand and a hundred musicians tear into the Handel, making a sound you've never heard before, and never will again. A sound that goes through you, through flesh and bone, and reorders the very beat of your heart.

Men are the weak ones, luv. Didn't you know? Oh, you make a lot of noise, but its the women who are strong. Where it counts. In 'ere.

He pressed himself into me and kissed my neck, and it was as if everything strong and solid inside me, heart and bones and muscle and gut, softened and melted from the heat of him.

You can't argue with the dead, no matter what you say, they always have the last word.

The feeling that you get.... when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don't want it to, but you can't stop it. And you know, for the first time, that there will now be a before and an after, a was and a will be. And that you will never again quite be the same person you were.

...Listen to your own thoughts and feelings very carefully, be aware of your observations, and learn to value them. When you're a teenager—and even when you're older—lots of people will try to tell you what to think and feel. Try to stand still inside all of that and hear your own voice. It's yours and only yours, it's unique and worth of your attention, and if you cultivate it properly, it might just make you a writer.

Little by little, the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him.