Quotes from Billie Livingston

I knew we wouldn't be friends. Lilly looked like what Mum called a sprite: a puny head, too-big black eyes, bee-size mouth and two black braids that hung long over skinny-boned shoulders. She looked tricky. She looked like she bit.

They say you can't go home again, but the truth is, you have to. You have to sit still in your godforsaken living room and watch the gold sunlight coming through the blinds. You have to hear the tweeting birds and the coughing crows and face the fact that no one else is coming through the front door.

We plead for help from eyelashes, dandelions, pennies, wishbones and shooting stars. And then some of us have the nerve to get down on our knees and clasp our hands. What must it be like to be so brave and bereft at once? To drop all one's defences? It's one thing when a chicken bone is deaf to your deepest desires, but it must be something else when God goes silent.