Although it was very cold, he wore no coat. I think some English people think coats are for the weak.

This pool is a triumph of imagination. That's how you win at life, Gin. You have to imagine your way through. Never say something can't be done. There's always a solution, even if it's weird.

The essay I had to read was called, "An Essay on Criticism" by Alexander Pope. The first challenge was that the essay was, in fact, a very long poem in "heroic couplets". If something is called an essay, it should be an essay.

This wasn't a position she wanted to be in. And yet . . . yet she knew that she was going to do it anyway.

Mouth guard. And I think we'll start you in goal." Goal sounded like a special job. I didn't want a special job, unless that special job involved sitting on the side under a pile of blankets.

Once again, her parents' problems had run through her life like a piece of heavy equipment, smashing everything in their way.

I am a mass of contradictions.