"And when she at last came out, her eyes were dry. Her parents stared up from their silent breakfast at her. They both started to rise but she put a hand out, stopped them. 'I can care for myself, please,' and she set about getting some food. They watched her closely.

They kissed for the first time then in the cold spring rain, though neither one of them now knew that it was raining. Tristran's heart pounded in his chest as if it was not big enough to contain all the joy that it held. He opened his eyes as he kissed the star. Her sky-blue eyes stared back into his, and in her eyes he could see no parting from her.

When she came to her senses again she cut off all contact with him. It had not been easy, but she had steeled herself. The last time she saw him she was standing on a platform in the tunnelbana at Gamla Stan and he was sitting in the train on his way downtown. She had stared at him for a whole minute and decided that she did not have a grain of feeling left, because it would have been the same as bleeding to death. Fuck you.

He stared at her, knowing with certainty that he was falling in love. He pulled her close and kissed her beneath a blanket of stars, wondering how on earth he'd been lucky enough to find her.

I'd much rather have sat there and just been a fly on the wall instead of having to smile at people. I'd rather have been a waitress. Just gone round and stared at people.

My mother sent me to psychiatrists since the age of four because she didn't think little boys should be sad. When my brother was born I stared out the window for days. Can you imagine that?

A plague on eminence! I hardly dare cross the street anymore without a convoy and I am stared at wherever I go like an idiot member of a royal family or an animal in a zoo and zoo animals have been known to die from stares.

My biggest hero Gregory Peck was my birthday present on April 14 1973. I just sat and stared at him.