"What’s it like being a writer? Mostly it’s like being a child surrounded by adults. My friends have grown-up careers. They balance spreadsheets, analyze data, negotiate deals. They build things, heal patients, teach children. Meanwhile, I’m over here saying “Let’s pretend."

"His eyes go wide while a gasp of wonder passes his lips. He turns his body fully toward us. His lips moving like a fish out of water, gasping for breath. He gives his head a shake and stutters out, “Mer—mermaids. There are fish with women’s bodies or—women with fish bodies sitting upon the rocks. I—I never knew..."

"A woman needed half her leg amputated after she slipped and broke the leg as she was cleaning her bath while she was still asleep. Not even the pain of a broken bone woke her and the angle at which she fell cut off circulation to the leg, killing the limb. When she finally awoke, she was close to multi-organ collapse."

"Old photographs are very deceiving, they give us the illusion that we are alive in them, and it's not true, the person we are looking at no longer exists, and if that person could see us, he or she would not recognise him -- or herself in us, 'Who's that looking at me so sadly,' he or she would say."

"Her endless, futile attempts to make her feelings known fell on stony ground. Slowly she retreated into the darkness where her dreams became reality and reality faded into the deep recesses of her soul...."

"Honey, are you being safe?''I wear my seat belt, yes.''Does this Rob Lovely wear a seat belt too?'Matty sighed. 'Mother, seat belts should be worn at all times when in a moving vehicle. Didn't you teach me that?''So long as we're both talking about condoms here, then I'll leave it.''Consider it left."