Turning things over and over in isolation had led me to a certain point, but I knew that to get any further I'd have to voice some ideas aloud, just to see how they sounded. But I certainly didn't go to Ellie expecting any kind of constructive input on her part. It was more that I'd hit a wall and needed someone to talk around the subject with - like when you come up against a problem that's just immune to normal logic.

Funerals aren't for the dead. They're for the living.

Mr. Treadstone believed that there was always an apposite word. The English language, after all, was the richest in the world. If you couldn’t find the apposite word, if you found your language slipping into the mire of vagueness and obscurity, this meant that you needed to work on your vocabulary. Because the apposite word certainly existed – and it was very eager to make your acquaintance.

Sometimes words aren't needed.

If you had to relive your life exactly as it was – same successes and failures, same happiness, same miseries, same mixture of comedy and tragedy – would you want to? Was it worth it?

I knew that iridium-193 was one of two stable isotopes of iridium, a very rare, very dense metal, but I didn't know that the periodic table even existed.I knew how many zeroes there were in a quintillion, but I thought that algebra lived in ponds.I'd picked up a few Latin words, and a smattering of Elvish, but my French was non-existent.I'd read more than one book of more than one thousand pages (more than once), but I wouldn't have been able to identify a metaphor if it poked me in the eye.By secondary-school standards, I was quite a dunce.

They called our arrangement a 'Death Pact' - but, really, that's not a phrase that tells you anything important. It's just the kind of phrase that sells newspapers. For us, it was never about death. It was about life. Knowing that there was a way out, that his suffering was not going to become unendurable (...).

I’ve brought you some things from home,’ I said, gesturing at the bag on the floor. ‘Some clothes and books – things like that.’‘Books – great! That’ll make things easier. You know I can’t read worth a damn right now!’‘There’s also some music. Schubert’s fifth, Mendelssohn’s third, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, Mahler’s fourth—’‘I would have preferred his sixth.’‘You’re not well enough for his sixth'.

It's possible to find order in chaos, and it's equally possible to find chaos underlying apparent order. Order and chaos are slippery concepts. They're like a set of twins who like to swap clothing from time to time. Order and chaos frequently intermingle and overlap, the same as beginnings and endings. Things are often more complicated, or more simple, than they seem. Often it depends on your angle. I think that telling a story is a way of trying to make life's complexity more comprehensible. It's a way of trying to separate order from chaos, patterns from pandemonium.

Don't you think it's good to serve your country?' I asked. 'No, I don't,' Mr Peterson said. 'I think it's good to serve your principles. And in the army you don't get to pick and choose your fights according to your conscience. You kill on command. Don't ever surrender your right to make your own moral decisions, kid.

If you're a boy, any display of sensitivity is gay. Compassion is gay. Crying is supergay. Reading is usually gay. Certain songs and types of music are gay. 'Enola Gay' would certainly be thought gay. Love songs are gay. Love itself is incredibly gay, as are any other heartfelt emotions. Singing is gay, but chanting is not gay. Wanking contests are not gay. Neither is all-male cuddling during specially designated periods in football matches, or communal bathing thereafter. (I didn't invent the rules of gay - I'm just telling you what they are.)

I know, for example, that Mr. Petersen did not experience the flow of time in the same way that I did during those last sixteen months. He told me often, particularly towards the end, that for him time had become a slow, peaceful drift. If I had to guess why this was the case, I'd say that maybe it was because this was time he never expected to have. Or maybe it was more than he was now letting time drift. There was a certain type of contentment in his outlook, which never strayed too far into the future. His life had become simple and uncluttered, and when you're living like that, I think time can seem to stretch out for ever. Matters only change when you start fretting about all the things you need to get done. The more stuff you try to force into it, the less accommodating time becomes.

... When you're living like that, I think time can seem to stretch out for ever. Matters only change when you start fretting about all the things you need to get done. The more stuff you try to force into it, the less accommodating time becomes.