This life is filled with threats and danger, David. We face those that we have to face, and there will be times when we must make the choice to act for the greater good, even at risk to ourselves, but we do not lay down our lives needlessly. Each of us has only one life to live, and one life to give. There is no glory in throwing it away where there is no hope.

‎"Sarge, mr. Nurd here is threatening to turn me to jelly." "really?" said Sarge. "what flavor?

There are people whose eyes you must avoid, whose attention you must not draw to yourself. They are strange, parasitic creatures, lost souls seeking to stretch across the abyss and make fatal contact with the warm, constant flow of humanity. They live in pain, and exist only to visit that pain on others. A random glance, the momentary lingering of a look, is enough to give them the excuse that they seek. Sometimes, it is better to keep your eyes on the gutter for the fear that, by looking up, you might catch a glimpse of them, black shapes against the sun, and be blinded forever.

“You don't have much faith in people, do you?” said David. “I don't have much faith in anything,” Roland replied. “Not even in myself.”

Why is there always one bloke in these boy bands who looks like he came to fix the boiler and somehow got bullied into joining the group?

David's mother would often tell him stories were alive. They weren't alive in the way people were alive,or even dogs or cats. People were alive whether you chose to notice them or not, while dogs tended to make you notice them if they decided that you weren't paying enough attention. Cats, meanwhile, were very good at pretending people didn't exist at all when it suited them.

It was an overcast late November morning, the grass splintered by hoarfrost, and winter grinning through the gaps in the clouds like a bad clown peering through the curtains before the show begins.