“Her lord father had taught her never to steal, but it was growing harder to remember why.”

“Yet her father had taught her that failing to act in the face of human suffering is inhuman.”

“One inch at a time, that was how her father had taught her. You can't do anything but worry about the few inches right in front of you.”

“Her father had taught her about hands. About a dog's paws. Whenever her father was alone with a dog in a house he would lean over and smell the skin at the base of its paw. This, he would say, as if coming away from a brandy snifter, is the greatest smell in the world! A bouquet! Great rumours of travel! She would pretend disgust, but the dog's paw was a wonder: the smell of it never suggested dirt. It's a cathedral! her father had said, so-and-so's garden, that field of grasses, a walk through cyclamen--a concentration of hints of all the paths the animal had taken during the day.”

“She liked to imagine him stealing a glimpse of her over the backyard fence, proudly watching his strange daughter daydream under the beech tree. Blue was awfully fond of her father, considering she'd never met him.”

“Mother! Katie remembered. She had called her own mother "mama" until the day she had told her that she was going to marry Johnny. She had said, "Mother, I'm going to marry..." She had never said "mama" after that. She had finished growing up when she stopped calling her mother “mama.” Now Francie…”