The left-hand lane is exclusively for the use of Porsches, BMWs and Mercedes. Dark-coloured vehicles only please. If you’re driving a white or silver car please stick to the middle lane at all times and moderate your speed. Loser!

Even phantoms don’t inhabit Bruges any more. It’s as though the living are the ghouls now, the zombies. It’s so uncannily empty, silent, lifeless…

Remember that this is a man’s confession of his sins. He did not write it for the entertainment of future generations, this is a man wrestling with the devil for his own soul.

On any sea voyage, even one as mundane as a cross-channel car ferry, it is difficult to focus on your destination until you have lost sight of the land.

The left-hand lane is exclusively for the use of Porsches, BMWs and Mercedes. Dark-coloured vehicles only please. If you're driving a white or silver car please stick to the middle lane at all times and moderate your speed. Loser!

Don’t give in, she urged the girl from inside her own head. Insist on your wriggly wiggly worms. Don’t let them take your story from you. If they do, you won’t ever hear it again and you’ll always have to read their books and be their little princess. Stand firm. Make them read you your wriggly wiggly worms.

Use your position wisely, young man. Remember that some stories are best left untold. Other news needs to be shouted from the church steeple. Yours is a task that requires wisdom and judgement. All stories are not the same.

I never had any free will. My life was always dictated by other people. I’m on a conveyor belt trundling towards some pre-ordained destiny and I don’t know how to get off it.

I’m not a strong virgin any more, I’m a mighty woman. I’m no longer just the ghost of a human being, I’m solid. But how could I be real if I never cast a shadow? I need my darker side in order to be whole.

I must speak a language that nobody else speaks. A language which was created solely for me.