"It wasn't fair, he thought peevishly. "Who said life was fair?" his father had said to him a hundred times. He had said the same himself to his own … - Kate Atkinson

[…] but her mother's death had revealed that there was no metaphor too ostentatious for grief. It was a terrible thing and demanded embellishment.

Her heart swelled with the high holiness of it all. Imminence was all around. She was both warrior and shining spear. She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.

I have been to the world's end and back and now I know what I would put in my bottom drawer. I would put my sisters.