“Turns out making a dramatic exit is a lot harder when you have to stand there and wait another twenty minutes for a boat to dock.”

“That was one problem with dramatic exits: Sometimes they wound up making you look like a bubblehead.”

“A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.”

“There was nothing new in sitting on this dock, on this or that wooden bench, watching for his boat to come. In some ways, she was always waiting for him.”

“Dramatic exits are the last refuge of the infantile personality”

“There’s another story I know. This one doesn’t have any swords or visions. This one is about a boy who found a girl during a terrible time.” “How did it turn out?” “I don’t know, but I do know the boy doesn’t regret it. Not a minute. No matter how it turns out. Because he’s been waiting for this girl from the time she was born, and if it takes another thousand years to meet her again, he’d wait again. Whatever it takes.”