Slammerkin

“For all the books in his possession, he still failed to read the stories written plain as day in the faces of the people around him.”

“The worn soles of Daffy's boots skidded on the icy stones. He'd been saving up for a new pair for Christmas, but then he'd come across an encyclopaedia in ten volumes, going cheap. Boots mig...”

“It came to Mary now that her mother had been right, after all; Mary had been born for this. In sixteen years she'd shot along the shortest route she could find between life and death, as the...”

“For some people, she thought, trials were only temporary; they sailed towards happiness through the roughest weather.”