Decisions. Where, what, why. Can't handle them. So I'm prolonging the indecision with higher education.

How to explain to the earth that it was more functional as a vegetable patch than a flower garden, just as factories were more functional than schools and boys were more functional as weapons than as humans.

For a second I was almost jealous of the clouds. Why was he looking to them for an escape when I was right here beside him?

The world won’t get more or less terrible if we’re indoors somewhere with a mug of hot chocolate,’ Kim said. ‘Though it’s possible it will seem slightly less terrible if there are marshmallows in the hot chocolate.

No self-respecting feminist could argue with the claim that the novel is more likely to accept existing power structures than not. But there's a vast difference, surely, between Dickens saying Indians should be exterminated and a Dave Eggers writing eloquently about the NSA, but not being as outspoken on American military power abroad.

The truths we conceal don't disappear Raheen, they appear in different forms

So many things you promise yourself you won't get used to, and then you do.