“I've never had this kind of scrap with one of our kind, only heard about them. You ever hear about a whole town losing its memory, ships at sea that witness water doing things it shouldn't, like talking, or ever just notice a large plot of land that never changes even though the entire neighborhood around it does? That's my kind fighting in one form or another. Croatoan? That was us.”

“Have you ever noticed, when things seem to be working against you, that if you focus on fixing things, think about a solution, that inevitably you work it all out?”

“Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds-- all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.”

“Funny to think that every day you have ever lived is a yesterday, and you will never live one single tomorrow. But then again, every day is a today when you’re living it.”

“I was sorry, though, that our intimacy, like many things that are and will be, had to die with a dying fall. I do not greatly mind endings, for my life is made up of them, but sometimes they come too soon or too late, and sometimes they leave feeling of regret as of an old mistake or an indirect futility.”

“Fear makes you do all sorts of strange things.”

“I don’t think meaning exists without form, and certainly form does not exist without meaning. Meaning and story come first. Story is the most important part of fiction. Without it, what’s the point? If all you care about is form, become a critic.”