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The beginning and the end, the anticipation and despair, that's where the story lies, but the state of being in love, and in particular of being young and in love, is like listening to someone describe their parachute jump or their bizarre dream, the blurred photograph of a life-changing preformance, taken from too far away.

I could only hate him like that because I'd once loved him to the same degree.

I was sixteen years old; people wrote anthems about this time of life, and wasn't I entitled to joy and fun and irresponsibility, rather than fear and fury and boredom?

I'd made a religion of the past, resorting to it like alcohol.

The notion that these had been the best years of our lives suddenly seemed both plausible and tragic and I wished that school had always been like this, our arms around each other, filled with a kind of hooligan love

We were plastic, mutable and there was still time to experiment and alter our handwriting, our politics, the way we laughed or walked or sat in a chair, before we hardened and set.

He felt the old beat of pleasure inside his body, like watching a perfect goal, like the rustling movement of light through leaves, a phrase of music from the window of a passing car. Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything.

[...] feeling a strange sense of nostalgia for a moment that was already in the process of happening.

She belives Marianne lacks 'warmth', by which she means the ability to beg for love from people who hate her.

Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening without her, and she didn't know if she would ever find out where it was and become part of it.

Jeg husker det som det var i går, sier folk om minner de har. Med traumer er det annerledes. Det er ikke mulig å huske det, fordi det alltid føles som det skjer akkurat nå. Man kan bare ikke ta det inn over seg, sortere, differensiere. Inntrykkene er for rå, for ekstreme, for umiddelbare. Fragmenterte. Kaotiske.

De sa man ikke kunne vite hva lykke var om man aldri hadde kjent på smerten. Men kunne man vite hva smerte var, om man aldri hadde vært lykkelig?

Jeg har ikke mer erfaring enn en hvilken som helst person med en lykkelig barndom. Jeg har bare andre erfaringer. De har erfaring med det fine, jeg med det stygge. Tenk gjennom det, og regn ut hvem som vinner.

Jeg er ikke den jeg var. Jeg ble ommøblert.

Jeg trodde jeg skulle bli overfalt, sa jeg, og så la jeg meg ned. Og nå er kåpa møkkete.
Hvorfor la du deg ned?
Jeg tenkte at det ikke er en voldtekt hvis jeg tar den på forskudd.

Jeg følte ingen smerte når det skjedde. Jeg lurte smerten og bedøvet meg selv. Og nå fulgte smerten etter meg og tok igjen.

Jeg prøvde å samle sammen bitene av meg selv, men jeg visste ikke hvor jeg skulle begynne å lete.

Jeg tenker aldri på det som skjedde, men det hender det tenker på meg.

I min verden fantes ikke tilgivelse, ikke engang for ofrene.

De prøvde å gjøre meg til en sammenhengende person, men de ante ikke hva de ville sette sammen, hva de hadde satt i gang.