“Swearing relieves the feelings - that is what swearing does. I explained this to my aunt on one occasion, but it didn't answer with her. She said I had no business to have such feelings.”

“How do I know you'll keep your word?" asked Coraline."I swear it," said the other mother. "I swear it on my own mother's grave.""Does she have a grave?" asked Coraline."Oh yes," said the other mother. "I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back.”

“Then, I asked her what was wrong, then smiled at me, and told me “I feel so sad.” And I swear at that time I could feel her slipping away. I didn’t know what to say, so I just said “I am here. And I don’t mind spending my whole life making you happy.”

“I had the feeling I'd just found something I didn't even know I'd lost. We hovered above the moment like two rain clouds, until I said: "Don't swear off all fruit just because you ate one bad apple.”

“'What was that?' Wallander said.[Linda] 'Nothing.''That's funny. I could have sworn you were swearing.''I didn't say anything.''I have a strange daughter,' Wallander said to Lindman. 'She curses without even knowing it.'”

“I asked her where she got her toughness. She pretended she didn't understand. Maybe she didn't at first, or maybe she had forgotten that to do the things she was prepared to do, to have them done to her, took enormous toughness, more than most people had. She said you just had to keep working on yourself until you didn't feel what they wanted you to feel, or anything else. By seven o'clock she had fallen asleep in my arms having said that she loved me and that she knew I was going through hell. She breathed like a little girl.”