Graeme Simsion

“Do not mess with this man's threads!”

“Lost love belongs in a three-minute song, pullling back feelings from a time when they came unbidden, recalling the infatuation, the walking on sunshine that cannot last and the pain of its loss, whether through parting or the passage of time, reminding us that we are emotional beings”

“I asked you here tonight because when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

“Humans should be permanently under development.”

“But why, why, why can't people just say what they mean?”

“Restaurants are minefields for the socially inept”

“If you really love someone,' Claudia continued, 'you have to be prepared to accept them as they are. Maybe you hope that one day they get a wake-up call and make the changes for their own reasons.”

“I've sequenced the questions for maximum speed of elimination,’ I explained. ‘I believe I can eliminate most women in less than forty seconds. Then you can choose the topic of discussion for the remaining time.’ ‘But then it won’t matter,’ said Frances. ‘I’ll have been eliminated.’ ‘Only as a potential partner. We may still be able to have an interesting discussion.’ ‘But I’ll have been eliminated.’ I nodded. ‘Do you smoke?’ ‘Occasionally,’ she said. I put the questionnaire away. ‘Excellent.’ I was pleased that my question sequencing was working so well. We could have wasted time talking about ice-cream flavours and make-up only to find that she smoked. Needless to say, smoking was not negotiable. ‘No more questions. What would you like to discuss?”

“The day might come when I had nothing but memories, and the choice of whether to indulge my romantic side and wallow in them, or my cynical side and reflect on the reliability.”