1. The flat has some problems with damp and often gets so cold at night that Connell can see his own breath in the dark, but Niall is a decent person at least.

2. If anything, his personality seemed like something external to himself, managed by the opinions of others, rather than anything he individually did or produced. Now he has a sense of invisibility, nothingness, with no reputation to recommend him to anyone.

3. crowd of smiling women in tight dresses and perfectly applied lipstick.

4. People in Dublin often mention the west of Ireland in this strange tone of voice, as if it's a foreign country, but one they consider themselves very knowledgeable about.

5. It feels intellectually unserious to concern himself with fictional people marrying one another. But there it is: literature moves him.

6. People in college are like this, unpleasantly smug one minute and then abasing themselves to show off their good manners the next.

7. All Connell's classmates have identical accents and carry the same size MacBook under their arms. In seminars they express their opinions passionately and conduct impromptu debates. Unable to form such straightforward views or express them with any force, Connell initially felt a sense of crushing inferiority to his fellow students, as if he had upgraded himself accidentally to an intellectual level far above his own, where he had to strain to make sense of the most basic premises.

8. It's easy for them to have opinions, and to express them with confidence. They don't worry about apperaring ignorant or conceited.