“I was going to ask him, yes I was. “You remember Blackberry Night?”The torches were alive with yellow butterfly-flames. “I can’t forget it.” His eyes were whiter than white.“You remember the thing we might have done that night, but it turned out to be a thing we didn’t do?” It was late and my tongue had gone bleary. “The thing you stopped us from doing?”“I especially can’t forget that.”I was asking about lust, wasn’t I? I was fairly certain of it. But isn’t love supposed to come before lust? It does in the dictionary.”

“I was asking about lust, wasnʼt I? I was fairly certain of it. But isnʼt love supposed to come before lust? It does in the dictionary.”

“The boy shall have a proper beating,' said Cecil.'But I beat him already,' I said, 'and don't tell me I didn't do it properly. I'm touchy about these things.”

“You mind your tongue!” “Oh, I do,” I said. “I sharpen it every evening on your name.”

“Perhaps you should put your head down.” I knew this was the thing to do, although I’ve never fainted and I don’t intend to.”

“I think about the Old Ones, that they have a past but no history. I think about the inevitability of death, and whether it’s not that very inevitability that inspires us to take photographs and make scrapbooks and tell stories. That that’s how we humans find our way to immortality. This is not a new thought; I’ve had such thoughts before. But I have a new thought now. That that’s how we find our way toward meaning. Meaning. If you’re going to die, you want to find meaning in life. You want to connect the dots.”

“The sea up close is enormous. I squeezed my eyes against it for a moment, which is ridiculous, like fighting a giant with a pin. It comes to you anyway, through your ears and nose and skin and tongue. It is a savage, muscular thing, a vast dim wetness battering at the land and the air and all your senses.”