“They bought clams and cockles from her, told her true tales of Braavos and lies about their lives, and laughed at the way she talked when she tried to speak Braavosi.”

“Once she was separated from the cockles & clams, she found herself miraculously transformed into a Goddess. But she found herself different from the Goddesses & Nymphs of the sea because of the girdle. It clung to her body as a second skin, or as the shell clung to the cockle, & she had never been able to take it off. And thus, she herself had never known what she hid beneath the girdle.”

“When I told her my love would stop her tears from falling, she started laughing. She laughed so hard she started crying. Damn. Double damn!”

“Oysters, clams, and cockles were cat's magic words, and like all good magic words they could take her almost anywhere.”

“And she[Aphrodite]mourned Nerites` loss not because Nerites was her paramour but because she was her mentor.It was, strangely enough,poor Nerites who had taught her all she had known about sex & love until then. For how was a young Goddess, who was born from a cockle, to know about such things?”

“Francie is smart, she thought. She must go to high school and maybe beyond that. She's a learner and she'll be somebody someday. But when she's educated, she will grow away from me. Why, she's growing away from me now. She does not love me the way the boy loves me. I feel her turn away from me. She does not understand me. All she understands is that I don't understand her. Maybe when she gets education, she will be ashamed of me - the way I talk. But she will have too much character to show it. Instead she will try to make me different. She will come to see me and try to make me live in a better way and I will be mean to her because I'll know she's above me. She will figure out too much about things as she grows older; she'll get to know too much for her own happiness.”