Gwendoline Riley

“I don't know what I'm playing at. I feel so romantic and furious all the time.”

“I said 'I was imagining you as a little boy, and as a teenager, and as an old man.'He said: 'I was looking at you and thinking how young you look, and how old at the same time.”

“What they prefer to that is to find someone to have power over; someone to own and to bully, to smash and to waste. She wondered if she would ever be in love.”

“She was learning something important: how to live within the sound of her own slow breathing, how to love the view when her eyes were shut.”

“Writing to you like this is the same as saying your name when I've woken up late, feeling sick, tasting rot. It's pointless, but it happens.”

“If only i could get that under control then i feel like i could stay here a long time, watching the days leaking into the nights, swilling over the buildings, bleeding back again. I could lie and not think of anything but ways to describe the sky, the clouds, the light.”

“He lies down next to me.He says, 'You know - you have a face to die for/''Well, don't die,' I say, "we just met.”

“I think they're being cheap with their lives, that's why. So they seem ravenous for the worst thoughts I can have.”

“It's all about vanity, isn't it? I think it says something about people if they can't do it”