“Skibbereen have a hard time at [math]; the best that the smartest of them can do with adding two plus two is guessing: three plus one. Correct, sort of, but not always useful.”

“One plus one equals both.”

“What goes unnamed remains hard to correct.”

“You can endure any sort of prison if you can apprehend a window in the dark.”

“Wishing is the beginning of imagination. They practice wishing when they are young things, and then -when they have grown - they have a developed imagination. Which can do some harm - greed, that kind of thing - but more often does them some good. They can imagine that things might be different. Might be other than they seem. Could be better.”

“You always had an eye for the fellow with a decent helping of sausage and hard-boiled eggs.”

“To grow a melody?" "You can't grow a melody on purpose,” she said, and slyly added, “you have to plant an accidental.”