“Eight hours West sat a man alone on a beach mourning an inexplicable loss. He could only think of his loss in little packets of grief at a time, because the whole thing was too great to be borne.”

“If needs must, she could do those things for herself-or find another man. And yet...she needed him-would mourn his loss if it came. Perhaps forever. In his present vulnerable mood, that knowledge seemed a great gift.”

“It's a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can't eat for eight hours; he can't drink for eight hours; he can't make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work. ”

“... 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.”

“On the beach, Roran stood alone, watching them go. Then he threw back his head and uttered a long, aching cry, and the night echoed with the sound of his loss.”

“Still others, like Kavita, just sit and sit, sometimes for hours. They are the ones, she now understands, who are mourning. Like her, they mourn a loss so wide and sodeep and so all-encompassing that it threatens to wash them away with grief.”