“It's my partner," he said, smiling. It didn't look easy for him, that smile, but it transformed him from a thin-faced freckled man with a blade of a nose to a man with sexiness to spare.”

“I was reminded of the old man who used to go into a large city church every day and just sit there. One day the minister asked him what he did each day. The old man smiled and said, 'I look at Him, and He looks at me.' That's real prayer!”

“It's easy enough to smile at a man if you want to capture his attention, but once you realize he's not really looking at you, that perhaps he never really saw you, smiling becomes much more difficult”

“If he's like any other man I've ever met, it's not my smile he's going to be looking at.”

“The group was led by a very thin man whom the sheep didn't know. They looked hard at him. The leader of the flock is always important.”

“Outside the night worked its way towards dawn and inside Tina talked. When she got to the part about seeing Lockie in the uniform’s house she watched Doug’s face. She didn’t spare him anything because Lockie hadn’t been spared. She talked about the rope and the cold and the way Lockie froze when the man touched him.Doug’s skin became the colour of chalk and his fists clenched.She wanted to spare him the details but he needed to know. When she told him about letting Lockie hit the uniform with the poker a grim smile crossed his face. Tina understood the smile. People never really got beyond the concept of an eye for an eye. Especially when someone took your child.”