“Say it again slowly, that thing about the river.”

“They say nerves heal real slowly. Lots of things about us heal real slowly.”

“Things are going downhill with you!' he said to himself, and laughed about it, and as he was saying it, he happened to glance at the river, and he also saw the river going downhill, always moving on downhill, and singing and being happy through it all.”

“To grow up is to wonder about things; to be grown up is to slowly forget the things you wondered about as a child.”

“All of those things - rock and men and river - resisted change, resisted the coming as they did the going. Hood warmed and rose slowly, breaking open the plain, and cooled slowly over the plain it buried. The nature of things is resistance to change, while the nature of process is resistance to stasis, yet things and process are one, and the line from inorganic to organic and back is uninterrupted and unbroken.”

“Taggle looked up at her, his amber eyes as deep as the loneliness Kate had felt before he became her friend."The traditional thing," he said slowly, "involves the river and a sack.”