“The ship started a school of fliers that skipped along the wave tops like shining silver coins."These are the ghosts of treasures ost at sea," the cook went on, "the murder things, emeralds and diamonds and gold; the sins of men, committed for them, stick to them and make them haunt the ocean. Ah! It's a poor thing if a sailor will not make a grand tale about it."Henry pointed to a great tortoise asleep on the surface. "And what is the tale of the turtles?" He asked."Nothing; only food...”

“And the people listened, and their faces were quiet with listening. The story tellers, gathering attention into their tales, spoke in great rhythms, spoke in great words because the tales were great, and the listeners became great through them.”

“Yes, you will. And I will warn you now that not their blood but your suspicion might build evil in them. They will be what you expect of them…I think when a man finds good or bad in his children he is seeing only what he planted in them after they cleared the womb.""You can’t make a race horse of a pig.""No," said Samuel, "but you can make a very fast pig.”

“They were students of the expressions of young women as they went in to confession, and they saw them as they came out and read the nature of the sin.”

“Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.”

“I know a little bit about a great many things and not enough about any one to make a living in these times.”

“Strength and success - they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn't seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught.”