No. But it's like the argument `don't donate to third-world countries because the money mightn't get to them.' People only say that because it makes them feel better about the fact that they do nothing.

Once she made him watch Pride and Prejudice and for ages he would re-word Mr Bingley's apology to Jane Bennet, saying, 'I've been an inexplicable fool', for anything from losing his keys to burping out loud. Her reply to anything she wanted to do was Jane Bennet's response to Bingley's marriage proposal, 'A thousand times yes.

My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die.

Teresa, Teresa. Have we taught you nothing?" Raffy says in an irritated voice. "It's war. You go in and you hunt him down until he realises that he's made a mistake.

So between you and me," I tell Justine on the phone that night, "we're either bitchy or stupid." "Oh God," she moans. "Everyone thinks I'm an idiot." "Thanks!

This is what I know. I look like my father. My father disappeared when he was seventeen years old. Hannah once told me that there is something unnatural about being older than your father ever got to be. When you can say that at the age of seventeen, it's a different kind of devastating.

I don't want to let go, because tonight I'm not looking for anything more than being part of him. Because being part of him isn't just anything. It's kind of everything.