Some people spend their whole lives looking for themselves, yet our self is the one thing we surely cannot lose (how like a cheap philosopher I am become, staying in this benighted place). From the moment we are conceived it is the pattern in our blood and our bones are printed through with it like sticks of seaside rock. Nora, on the other hand, says that she’s surprised anyone knows who they are, considering that every cell and molecule in our bodies has been replaced many times over since we were born.

I have been to the world's end and back and now I know what I would put in my bottom drawer .I would put my sisters.

Sometimes it was harder to change the past than it was the future.

It was a long time ago now. And it was yesterday.

The Grim Reaper, Gloria corrected herself - if anyone deserved capital letters it was surely Death. Gloria would rather like to be the Grim Reaper. She wouldn't necessarily be grim, she suspected she would be quite cheerful (Come along now, don't make such a fuss).

If people believed in eternal damnation they might not be seizing the day quite so much.

The great thing about writing compared to life is getting to tie things up.