“And something else came back, from that later first morning at Kensington Park Gardens: a sense that the house was not only an enhancement of Toby's interest but a compensation for his lack of it.”

“His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy.”

“My father said being an artist is the shortest road to the poor house , claiming "real" work is something you don't like. I ignored him through oppositional behavior, later reasoning that only an idiot sets out to find the poor house , not to mention devote himself to something he does not love. Instead, I discovered an interesting back road to the unknown , and deliberately without a safety net.”

“Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what's going on, but that there's something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world.”

“Toby had spent three years living in the East End of London, back when he was a student, an area that would have profited greatly from a heavily armed UN Peacekeeping force. Lacking the funds necessary to reach the more civilized areas of London, toby endured three very long years...”

“Interesting, he later reflected, was perhaps not the correct word.By the time he and Henry arrived back at the house for their midday meal—a scrumptious bowl of hot, sticky porridge—he had mucked out the stable stalls, milked a cow, been pecked by three separate hens, weeded a vegetable garden, and fallen into a trough.”