The beginning is the word and the end is silence. And in between are all the stories. - Kate Atkinson

She had been here before. She had never been here before. There was always something just out of sight, just around a corner, something she could never chase down — something that was chasing her down.

What would I put in my bottom drawer? – I would put only sharp objects, the clean lines of broken glass, the honed steel of paring knives, the tiny saw-teeth of bread knives and the soothing edges of razor blades, I weigh knives in my hands like strange comforters.

"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 daughter. ("It's not fair, Daddy.") Parents were miserable buggers. It SHOULD be fair. It should be paradise."