Mrs Pitt shouted up the stairs for her daughter with a voice like a foghorn, then smiled cheerfully at Calvin. “She’ll be down in a mo,” she said, and showed him in to the front room, which was a colourful sea of Lego bricks with a small child bobbing in it.

People told you things over a cup of tea that they wouldn’t under torture.

Decide what you want and then work out how to get it.

Truly visible by his absence.

Then he stared down at the twinkling lights and sobbed, “All my stars fell out of the sky.

Avery adapted so fast he’d have blown a hole straight through Darwinism.

She had arthritis, which meant that sometimes she experienced the agony of her diamond rings not fitting. She complained to the doctor about it constantly; she’d paid good money for those rings and somehow felt that the NHS simply didn’t want her wearing them – socialist cartel that it was.

All I’m saying is, when you have a kid, then suddenly you understand how easy it is to make mistakes, see? And you forgive your parents a bit, you know?

Steven was writing to the Devil and asking for mercy.

Death wants his Maiden.