“Hemlock in the cocktails, wasn't it? Something of that kind.”

“It looked like something the Hemlock needed, or a piece of equipment a plumber had left behind. It looked like none of your business.”

“It is spruce and pine and hemlock country, deerfly and punkie and blackfly country, wool and four-wheel-drive country, loon and osprey and raven country. My kind of country.”

“[Juan Speaking] "Sixth, know that there is hemlock near, there always is and it's always easy to drink it freely or have it forced down your throat. Now days, the hemlock is called differently: departing 'voluntarily' after withering harassment, 'termination for cause', character assassinations circulated without remorse, call it what you will, but they can and will and love to administer the hemlock. You must either strive to join the powers that be, and hand out the hemlock, or strive to avoid taking the hemlock they will be thrusting upon you; there is no middle ground, no defense, no recourse.”

“Sometimes, Laura World wasn't a realm of log cabins or prairies, it was a way of being. Really, a way of being happy. I wasn't into the flowery sayings, but I was nonetheless in love with the idea of serene rooms full of endless quiet and time, of sky in the windows, of a life comfortably cluttered and yet in some kind of perfect feng shui equilibrium, where all the days were capacious enough to bake bread and write novels and perambulate the wooded hills deep in thought (though truthfully, I'd allow for the occasional Rose-style cocktail party as well).”

“There are two kinds of hope: the kind you couldn't do anything about and the kind you could. And even if the kind you could do something about wasn't what you'd originally wanted, it was still worth doing. A rainy day is better than no day. A small happiness can make a big sadness less sad.”