How do you know whether you are a force for good? How do you ever know if the world would not in fact be lost without you? At what stage does a hand become a hold?

He pressed ‘send’ and felt as though he had just thrown a water balloon over a privet hedge.

He thought about how, whenever he read something he wanted to share as a child, if only because he would burst with amazement if he didn’t, she used the same phrase, a phrase that Leonard hoped every parent used with their children every day: ‘Tell me.’ With her attention undivided, he would gush with every last detail, urging her to share his awe,

The three of them often talked like this about Hungry Paul. They had always seen themselves as the bumpers along the bowling lane for him to bounce between, saving him from mundane dangers and guiding him towards his achievements, modest though they were. It was sincere, well-meant and maybe even necessary. And yet, when you love somebody it can be

For a man who suffered from indecision over the smallest things—including walking out of the Cineplex because of his inability to choose between three films, all of which he wanted to see—deciding his next romantic move was a Homeric struggle. All his plans and preparations came to nothing.

Helen kissed Peter on the forehead, bald heads in general getting more kisses than the hairy kind, which is some small comfort.

Hungry Paul was not a bird watcher as such. Though he loved looking at them and identifying them and being part of their lives, he never liked the collector mentality of birdwatching: all that ticking off lists and valuing the obscure over the everyday. He saw birds as part of nature, just like himself, and appreciated them with kindred interest.

Given that all good ideas have a natural buoyancy that forces them to the surface,

Even as she shrank down to her smallest, she could still feel the faint and plucky pulse of her devastated heart. It had continued to beat in the darkest part of her chest during her loneliest moments. Knowing that her heart was always, always alive, and did not simply come to life when she loved, gave her an invincibility. Her heart felt like a ch