I’d sneer and tell him he’s got the cerebral finesse of an amoeba and delight in his squint of confusion.

I force a smile and hold up my hand, which must end up looking like some sort of strange, leery wince, like I’ve just swallowed a glass of somebody’s urine and I’m recommending it.

I collect words and lock them away, stored like a hoard of gems.

See, most people you meet, they’ll talk to you through fifty layers of gauze and tinting. Sometimes you know they’re lying even before they’ve started speaking. And it seems the older they get, the more brazen and desperate folks become, and they lie about things that don’t even matter... I don’t know. Maybe they just get so used to it they don’t even notice. Maybe it’s like a creeping curse and the more you do it, the easier it gets. What’s amazing is that they think they’re fooling anybody.

Jasper Jones fell out of this world and nobody noticed... And they’ll notice now because something has been burned. Now they’ll look for Jasper Jones.

And so I think I got married because I thought that a ring would lock that love in forever, because it’s very scary when it is just your feelings holding you together.

Tongues were wagging. Aspersions were being cast like dandelion spores on hot gossipy winds.

And it happens like that. Like when you first realise that there is no such thing as magic.

Batman doesn’t have any superpowers. He’s not superhuman. He’s not super. So therefore he can’t be a superhero.

I never understood why you would ever feel the need to shoot the fish in the barrel. I mean, they’re in a barrel, you’ve already caught them. The hard work’s done, they can’t escape. So if you want them dead, just drain the water out. Why bring guns into it?