Gavin Extence

“Funerals aren't for the dead. They're for the living.”

“I knew that iridium-193 was one of two stable isotopes of iridium, a very rare, very dense metal, but I didn't know that the periodic table even existed.I knew how many zeroes there were in a quintillion, but I thought that algebra lived in ponds.I'd picked up a few Latin words, and a smattering of Elvish, but my French was non-existent.I'd read more than one book of more than one thousand pages (more than once), but I wouldn't have been able to identify a metaphor if it poked me in the eye.By secondary-school standards, I was quite a dunce.”

“They called our arrangement a 'Death Pact' - but, really, that's not a phrase that tells you anything important. It's just the kind of phrase that sells newspapers. For us, it was never about death. It was about life. Knowing that there was a way out, that his suffering was not going to become unendurable (...).”

“Mr. Treadstone believed that there was always an apposite word. The English language, after all, was the richest in the world. If you couldn’t find the apposite word, if you found your language slipping into the mire of vagueness and obscurity, this meant that you needed to work on your vocabulary. Because the apposite word certainly existed – and it was very eager to make your acquaintance.”

“I’ve brought you some things from home,’ I said, gesturing at the bag on the floor. ‘Some clothes and books – things like that.’‘Books – great! That’ll make things easier. You know I can’t read worth a damn right now!’‘There’s also some music. Schubert’s fifth, Mendelssohn’s third, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, Mahler’s fourth—’‘I would have preferred his sixth.’‘You’re not well enough for his sixth'.”

“If you had to relive your life exactly as it was – same successes and failures, same happiness, same miseries, same mixture of comedy and tragedy – would you want to? Was it worth it?”

“Sometimes words aren't needed.”

“Turning things over and over in isolation had led me to a certain point, but I knew that to get any further I'd have to voice some ideas aloud, just to see how they sounded. But I certainly didn't go to Ellie expecting any kind of constructive input on her part. It was more that I'd hit a wall and needed someone to talk around the subject with - like when you come up against a problem that's just immune to normal logic.”