I had forgotten that Jess felt about long words the way that racists feel about black people: She hated them, and wanted to send them back from where they came from.

I'm still not a very good white wine, but I'm drinkable - you could put me in a punch, anyway.

I had to nurture those doubts as if they were tiny, sickly kittens, until eventually they became sturdy, healthy grievances, with their own cat doors, which allowed them to wander in and out of our conversation at will.

That was his mother. When she wasn't crying over the breakfast cereal, she was laughing about killing herself.

Hard is trying to rebuild yourself, piece by piece, with no instruction book, and no clue as to where all the important bits are supposed to go.

But all three of them had had to lose things in order to gain other things. Will had lost his shell and his cool and his distance, and he felt scared and vulnerable, but he got to be with Rachel; and Fiona had lost a big chunk of Marcus, and she got to stay away from the casualty ward; and Marcus had lost himself, and got to walk home from school with his shoes on.

On New Year's Eve he ould make a resolution to recover some his previous scepticism, but until then he would do as the Romans do, and smile at people even if he disapproved of them