“She came to a little wrecked pleasure-steamer, which had become embedded in the mud several summers ago and which no one had bothered to remove. It had been a vulgar, tubby little boat when it used to steam through the water with its handful of holiday-makers, giving shrill whistles at every bend and causing a wash that disturbed the fishermen as they sat peacefully on the banks; but, now it lay sideways in the mud with its gaudy paint all bleached, it was almost beautiful.”

“She cleared her throat once or twice, and said something about poor people should eat a lot of herrings, as they were most nutritious, also she had heard poor people eat heaps of sheeps' heads and she went on to ask if I ever cooked them. I said I would rather be dead than cook or eat a sheep's head; I'd seen them in butchers' shops with awful eyes and bits of wool sticking to their skulls. After that helpful hints for the poor were forgotten.”

“Tenía la idea de que, si ejercías un control mental y te decías muy seria: «No tendré hijos», seguramente no vendrían.”

“For although she had been, and still was, very much admired, she had got into the way of preferring unsatisfactory love affairs to any others, so that it was becoming almost a bad habit.”

“A disturbing experience it had been, exciting and confusing.”

“Cora Thompson had two of them--cats, that is. Which was quite remarkable considering she had never owned a pet before. Growing up in the rural South as she had, Cora had been taught that if an animal couldn't work in a field or be slaughtered for food, then it was of no use. Certainly any domesticated animal such as a dog or a cat would only bring about the destruction of fine furniture, stained carpets, and the onset of disease, not to mention the foul odor. That's just the way it was.”

“A freshly red-painted train caboose had, for decades now, made its home on a green, little patch of the world outside of the one-room post office. Every small town that I had ever been to had had a caboose.”