I've got this theory that human beings are innately religious; we have a belief system. It doesn't have to be a theist form, necessarily. But we need a belief system, some framework on which to hang our behavior.

Time works so hard for us, if only we can let it.

If you rewrite a paragraph fifty times and forty-nine of them are terrible, that's fine; you only need to get it right once.

A bore or an uggo might manage not to get up anyone's nose, but if a girl's got brains and looks and personality, she's going to piss someone off, somewhere along the way.

Her forehead was a maze of anxious little grooves, from a lifetime of wondering about whether everyone within range was OK.

Don't you ever feel that - that you just need to get away? From everything? That it's all too much?

One of my da's tragedies was always the fact that he was bright enough to understand just how comprehensively he had shat all over his life.