“She'd read once that if you ran into a bear in the woods you should avoid eye contact and you shouldn't run away, but all she knew about wolves is that you should never tell them how to find your grandmother's house.”

“I think if you like somebody you have to tell them. It might be embarrassing to say it, but you will never regret stepping up. I know from personal experience, however, that you should not keep telling a girl that you like her after she tells you she isn't into it. You should not keep riding your bike by her house either.”

“There is nothing,” she said, and then, still looking away into the woods, reached sideways and took Ernald's arm firmly, “but be said by me, there was something hunting along our trail not a sennight since, and should it come here, see you and yours are within the gates.” She shook him gently. “Do not be slighting it, Ernald, great strong lad that you are and brave as a bear: it is something terrible, that no one should run to meet.”

“They exit one by one, or sometimes two by two. You scatter pieces of them on the snow in the woods and then run away as fast as you can, and then you turn and run back towards them, once they're beyond your reach.”

“Cooper smelled damage a mile away. He knew she'd never run. She'd never tell.”

“Mamma, don't you see -- you shouldn't hit me. He shouldn't hit me. You shouldn't hit me about God, Mamma. You should never hit anybody about God . . . .”