“Even terror needs a yardstick, and surely the yardstick for the unknown is the known?”

“No, he hadn't known anything about children, but now he'd learned something: a child's mind is open to everything.”

“That's how it is, he told himself. If you dread something enough, even your worst fears coming true brings comfort.”

“As he passed through the dining room, he stopped and took a white daisy from the bouqet his housekeeper had placed in the middle of the table..and put the daisy in the buttonhole of his summer jacket. Then he opened the front door and walked down the steps to Prinsegade, filled with the blind triumph that people sometimes experience when they've conquered their own better judgment.”

“From now on, consider yourself a con artist.”

“... The women's song was always the same, as monotonous as the beating of the waves against the beach: loss, loss. The conch offered them no enchantment. When they put their ear to it, all they heard was the echo of their mourning.”

“That's how we're connected: through the hurt we inflict on one another.”