“You could bury people one hundred floors down, and a whole dead world could be underneath the living one.”

“God, did they know? A year made the world of difference! This was one more year I could be with Jason, one more year I could live! I signed up for three hundred years. . . not three hundred and one!”

“First the strangers came with argument and authority and gunpowder to back up both. And in the four hundred years Kino's people had learned only one defense - a slight slitting of the eyes and a slight tightening of the lips and a retirement. Nothing could break down this wall, and they could remain whole within the wall.”

“one word could change the whole world”

“The hands on the clock never faulted, not for a second. One day ended; and a new began. If there was one thing on this earth that could be counted on, it was that. Time never paused to mourn the dead. That particular privilege is allotted to the living. It is for the survivor to mourn, bury the dead, and leave the rest to the earth. That is they way of it – the way of death - and the misery it leaves behind.”

“One tiny flame could make so many other flames; one tiny flame could set afire a whole world.”