“The termagant who had dragged him out on long, boring walks, who had tried in vain to censor his reading, who had labeled him an impious liar and criminal, was dead at last, and the boy, hearing a servant say 'she has passed away', sank to his knees on the kitchen floor to thank God for so great a deliverance.”

“How could he possibly understand just how much she had to give and how desperately she wanted to give it to him, and him alone? He, who had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but bore it with this capable strength. He, who stood alone at the top, silent and courageous in his dedication to the legacy he had inherited. And lastly, he, who so clearly needed someone, anyone, to understand him.”

“I had come to Charleston as a young boy, a lonely visitor slouching through its well-tended streets, a young boy, lean and grassy, who grew fluent in his devotion and appreciation of that city's inestimable charm. I was a boy there and saw things through the eyes of a boy for the last time. The boy was dying and I wanted to leave him in the silent lanes South of Broad.I would leave him with no regrets except that I had not stopped to honor his passing. I had not thanked the boy for his capacity for astonishment, for curiosity, and for survival. I was indebted to that boy. I owed him my respect and my thanks. I owed him my remembrance of the lessons he learned so keenly and so ominously.”

“Last night it had been my father who had finally said it: "She’s never coming home." A clear and easy piece of truth that everyone who had ever known me had accepted. But he needed to say it, and she needed to hear him say it.”

“For the last year his grandma had been slipping in and out of reality. One minute she was as clear as a bell and the next she was calling him Simon. Who was Simon? He had no idea.”

“She looked at him and realized that she loved him, out of nowhere, pure and simple. She loved him: this boy who fit so naturally in the water, the wild, and in everything else. She loved him: this boy who seemed to grow up out of the ground itself. There was a part of her that had known this from the first time she had seen him. This was what love was: a landslide in your heart.”