You have to accept that sometimes that's how things happen in this world. People's opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process.

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I half closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave, and maybe even call.

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As a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.

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If you are under the impression you have already perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heights you are no doubt capable of.

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There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.

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The problem, as I see it, is that you've been told and not told. You've been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way.

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Indeed — why should I not admit it? — in that moment, my heart was breaking.

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I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really - one has to ask oneself - what dignity is there in that?

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What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.

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It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you've made, and there's this panic because you don't know yet the scale of disaster you've left yourself open to.

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