“Deep down under where his heart resided, strangled up in thorny vines of guilt, anger, fear and longing, there lay something deeper in him, something that he couldn’t see but she could.”

“Clasping her to him, he hugged her for a long while and she felt his guilt and fear subside. “Do you want to see something very special—something magical?”Giggling she whispered, “You already showed me that this morning.”He swatted her bottom. “Minx! Not that!”

“Bai Shen did not move. He gazed down at Miri, and she could still see the fear, but this time it was mixed with guilt and deep raging sorrow that she could only guess had less to do with her, and everything to do with setting one's heart on a plan that had proven itself to be The Dumbest Move Alive.”

“Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness.It was deeper and more intimate that the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw.Okonkwo’s fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself.”

“It was fear. Fear that, after all the years of protecting his health, his heart, his mind, setting bedtimes and boundaries, giving warnings about strangers and looking both ways before crossing the street, it wouldn't be enough. Fear that, as he stood on the threshold of adulthood, forces beyond their control would take him down a path where they could no longer reach him. Fear that he'd be seduced by something ugly and would choose it. And that there would be nothing they could do but let him go.”

“And there he sat, looking outwardly composed, and all she could think of was that pond. Because something about him, something in his eyes, divulged the secret; there was a whole world in there, thriving just below the surface where no one could see it.”