“In that moment, I felt differently to myself yet the essence of who I really was.Like a perfect state of balance.”

“That intimacy is nice, too - knowing that you know so much about someone.”

“You're after perfection,'Matt said.'Is that so awful?''No, it's not, but if you aim for perfection, you've got to be ready to take the consequences of not getting it and one of those is ending up with no one.”

“I had nothing to contribute. I played no part. I was on the edge.Different.Alone.Everything around me, grey.It was the same old feeling, back again.I was in the middle of the group but I might as well have been a million miles away from these people.”

“It was as if I was in a picture, a flat canvas, and everything around me was flat, me painted on like everything else: no colour, nothing in front and nothing behind me, not even earlier today or tomorrow, nothing to look back or forward to, just this moment.”

“It's not like you're becoming a born-again Christian or teetotal or an accountant or something you can stop being after a while. You'll never not be a father now.''It feels great, Rob' he said. 'Just great.”

“He liked what he had too much.”

“In that moment, I felt differently to myself yet the essence of who I really was.Like a perfect state of balance.”

“You don't ever know what anyone's really like,' I said'Cause you do.''How?''They tell you; you tell them.''That's assuming you're honest. What if you lie?''Why would you want to lie?”

“I loved this place. You could prop up the bar and watch the world go by”