“...she bid me to look out on the lawn at the leper girls who were running on lame feet, playing croquet with crippled hands."There is beauty," she said, "in the least beautiful of things.”

“She thought for a moment, then said, “When we are young, we think life will be like a su po: one fabric, one weave, one grand design. But in truth, life turns out to be more like the patchwork cloths--bits and pieces, odds and ends--people, places, things we never expected, never wanted, perhaps. There is harmony in this, too, and beauty. I suppose that is why I like the chogak po.”

“No land is more beautiful, and therefore more powerful. That is what I believe in, Aouli. I believe in Hawai'i. I believe in the land."-Haleola”

“She had never been afraid of the dark, but then she had never known a dark like this before.”

“And sometimes she would dream again of being Namakaokahai'i, her waves rolling across burled coral beds, scattering moonlight, cresting higher and higher the farther she traveled over the reef. She was a colossus of water and motion soaring toward the black crescent of 'Awahuua Bay, her soul perched on the curling lip of the wave, riding it in the only way she could now; she felt the mana, the power in her waves, felt the rumble in her ocean depths.....”

“What's it like? Being married?Cold feet. Middle of the night you're sleeping, suddenly, wham, you've got ice cold feet warming themselves on the back of your legs.”

“By now the streets of Kalaupapa were filled with people racing for high ground - sick people crying"Tsunami!" as nature played yet another mean trick on them, God's last best joke at their expense. It was,after all, April Fool's Day.”