“On reflection,’ Crake said to Frey, as they huddled behind an upturned table, ‘this wasn’t one of your better plans.”

“The Ketty Jay was staffed with drunkards and drifters, all of them running from something -- whether it be memories or enemies or the drudgery of land-bound life -- but since Yortland they'd been running in the same direction. United by that common purpose, they'd begun to turn into something resembling a crew. And Frey had begun to turn into something resembling a captain.”

“You can’t tell half a tale, Poison. You can’t write half a book. Whatever you choose to do next will completely change the aspect of what has gone before. if you decided to suddenly kill your friends as they slept –“ Why would I do that?” Poison interjected.Bear with me,” Fleet said patiently. “If you did, then the tale would take on a whole new light. Instead of being the journey of Poison from Gull to save her sister, it would be the terrible story of how a young girl became a cold-blooded killer. They way it would be written would be different. Do you see? Or you might die right now, and it would turn out that it wasn’t your tale all along it was Bram’s or Peppercorn’s, and you were just one of the sideline characters. The whole story has to be known before it can be recorded; otherwise it might suddenly change. That’s the beauty, Poison. You never know what’s going to happen next. When the tale is ended, then the writing will be visible to your eyes; until then it is unwritten.”

“Then a person has only one tale?” No, some have two or three separate ones or more,” Fleet said. “Some people have many tales. Sometimes they are linked into one big tale, sometimes they are utterly distinct. Most people do not have one at all.”

“Things just seem so much better in theory than in practice.”

“Poison." he said, deadpan. "That's an unusual name to give your child. You must love her very much."She's a treasure." Bram agreed, blithely ignoing the sarcasm.....Then went a few dozen feet in silence, until they were out of eaarshor of the gaurd.She's a treasure." Poison mimicked, and Bram burst out laughing.”

“I just wanted them to die," said Poison. "They didn't have to make such a drama about it.”