“For years, my mother must have hated Deirdre; for years she must have wished her dead. And now that Deirdre was dead, my mother looked no different than she had when she thought Deirdre was alive - not guilty, nor relieved, nor happy. How was this possible? How could my mother know Deirdre was dead and still look at the world as if it were the same world, at the fire as if it were the same fire? But maybe this is what happens when you hate someone for so long: the person you hate dies, but the hate stays with you, to keep you company”

“But maybe this is what happens when you hate someone for so long: the person you hate dies, but the hate stays with you, to keep you company.”

“And what appearance is there on Deirdre?" he said. "It is this," said Gelban, "although Naoise put out my eye, I would have wished to stay there looking at her with the other eye, but for the haste you put on me; for there is not in the world a woman is better of shape or of form than herself.”

“Ill met by moonlight,' said Deirdre.'You could still be tied to a stake,' said Random, and she did not reply.”

“When I think of Tomodachi, I think of your mother. Your mother, she too lose her baby. She lose you. That very sad thing for her. Maybe she come looking, and she not find you. You not there when she come. She think you dead for ever. But she see you in her mind. Now as I speak maybe she see you in her mind. You always there. I know. I have son too. I have Michiya. He always in my head. Like Kimi. They dead for sure, but they in my head. They in my head forever.”

“It was Lisa, aged five, whose mother asked her to thank my wife for the peas we had sent them from our garden. 'I thought the peas were awful, I wish you and Mrs. Thurber were dead, and I hate trees,' said Lisa.”