Grief is a funny thing because you don't have to carry it with you for the rest of your life. After a bit you set it down by the roadside and walk on and leave it.

She thought of the last couple of years: the boredom, the narrowness of existence, the dearth of anything to look forward to. Yet now, in a single instant, the curtains had been whipped aside, and the windows been thrown open onto a brillant view that had been there, waiting for her, all the time. A view, moreover, laden with the most marvellous possibilities and opportunities.

I'm getting too elderly to travel the length of the country for a free hangover.

Things happen they way they're meant to. There's a pattern and a shape to everything...Nothing happens without a reason...Nothing is impossible...(Page 180).

It was good and nothing good is ever lost.

It was better not to get too close to another person. The closer you got, the more likely you were to get hurt.

The greatest gift a parent can leave a child is that parent's own independence.