“He had been through so much, and had grown so discouraged, so sad, so disgusted with himself, that he could understand... It was the worst thing in the world to lose faith with oneself.”

“He saw a world he had not seen before; a world made not for mastery but for living. Once seen it was a very simple thing to understand. The wonder was that he had been so blind.”

“It was as if the story had been added to, so as not to disgust people too much.”

“He asked himself whether it could be that he was in love with her, and then hoped he was not; hoped it not so much for his own sake as for that of the amatory passion itself. If this was love, love had been overrated.”

“And Nurd, who had never had a mother and father, and who had never loved or been loved, marvelled at the ways in which feeling so wonderful could also leave one open to so much pain. In a strange way, he envied Samuel even that. He wanted to care about someone so much that it could hurt.”

“He's been through so much and to watch that boy suffer makes me wish this world wasn't so cruel.”