“I know that sentence is long and has too many joining words in it but sometimes, when I'm angry, words burst out of me like a shout, or, if I'm sad, they spill out of me like tears, and if I'm happy my words are like a song. If that happens it's one of my rules not to change them because they're coming out of my heart and not my head, and that's the way they're meant to be.”

“..so Grandpa turned the rusty latchkey of his magnificent remembery and set free a symphony of stories”

“I couldn't remember anyone hugging me like that before.”

“... and all we knew about her that we didn't know the night before was that she had eyes like pansies and skin like the moon.”

“Through the night we drove in a tangle of waking and sleeping, nightmares from hell and holy white dreams.”

“We walked back the way we came, and even though it was dark there were no lights burning inside the houses. They were like people without hearts; raspberry tarts without the jam.”

“Then I kissed Max because I loved him, and everyone I had ever loved before had gone away and I had never kissed them goodbye.”

“I didn't know what to say when someone's given you a small free kiss in the dark ...”

“Sometimes it's better to live without a mother than not to live at all.”

“She reminded me of the sea; the way she came dancing towards you, wild and beautiful, and just when she was almost close enough to touch she'd rush away again.”

“... I'll tell her about Tia. I'll tell her how beautiful she was and how brave. And I'll tell her the most important thing of all: that her mother loved her better than her life.”