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Terrible in life when you wanted to give everything and there wasn't anyone willing to receive you.

She said it was important as you got older to take pleasure seriously. "You must grab it by the lapels," she said.

I sometimes wondered if there were quite long stretches of life in which you couldn't afford to be yourself.

They said the treatment was more likely to take if you had a companion with you. Life punished the lonely at every turn.

I wondered how long I could keep her at my side. People haven't stuck to me particularly in life. I've dealt myself out of things, without meaning to or realising.

I knew all the ways grief assaulted the personality.

She had long ago lost the art of the mechanics of eating, the simple up-down of knife and fork; her body sharp and empty as if she had no hospitality to offer herself.

The pain of cohabiting with someone who despised you, who thought you quite a few rungs lower than human. Bracing, that. A particular species of domestic violence.

Odd to be so proud and so furious with yourself all at once. At certain times I felt almost too embarrassed to exist.