“And maybe then when they were all a family, Tommy would be able to see what Mary used to see, what his other children saw, not just a man who would kill for them but a man who would die for them...the man underneath it all.”

“He knew all the stories. His grandfather had given them to him when he sat between the old man’s knees as a child. It was a comfort, though, to hear them again. To call them to mind. All these stories that made him more than just a vintner and more than just a man who carried a spear whom other men were willing to follow. More than just a man who lay dying. The stories made him one of the People, who would never die.”

“... if i die what will become of them? ... What will become of them? ... Who would feed it and who would feed them all?”

“She said that these were things all women knew yet seldom spoke of. Lastly she said that if women were drawn to rash men it was only that in their secret hearts they knew that a man who would not kill for them was of no use at all.”

“A man would die tonight of lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pitty in all the glittering multitude.”

“Never would I have a man saying what or who were best for me, and that were all there were to it.”