But thoughtless ingratitude is the armour of the young; without it, how would they ever get through life? The old wish the young well, but they wish them ill also: they would like to eat them up, and absorb their vitality, and remain immortal themselves. Without the protection of surliness and levity, all children would be crushed by the past - the past of others, loaded on their shoulders. Selfishness is their saving grace.

In the evenings there's been thunder, a distant bumping and stumbling, like God on a sullen binge.

Heroes need monsters to establish their heroic credentials. You need something scary to overcome.

I feel like cotton candy: sugar and air. Squeeze me and I’d turn into a small sickly damp wad of weeping pinky-red.

You can only be jealous of someone who has something you think you ought to have yourself.

We thought we were running away from the grownups, and now we are the grownups.

Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.