“The shape of his head, the set of his shoulders are a pattern she could recognize and love out of a crowd of shadows.”

“She was only a few yards from the door. If she lunged, she could be safely inside with solid metal between her and the bear. But she had called to him, and he had come. The tranquilizer dart that she had shot on the sea ice now lay in front of her. Impossibly, inexplicably, the bear had brought it back to her. She felt light-headed, and she knew she was shaking. She raised her eyes to look at the bear.He was a mass of shadows at the edge of the station floodlights. She could make out the shape of his muzzle and the hunch of his shoulders. "Cassandra Dasent," he said. His voice was a soft rumble.She felt as if her heart had stopped beating.”

“He was a super shiny boy and I liked the shape of him. Under the blanket. In the shower. I liked his shadow on the street and his imprint on the sofa. I hated the smell of hair gel on his head, but I loved it on the pillow. I love the smell of losing someone.”

“She let him finish, scratching his head with the tips of her fingers, and without his having revealed that he was weeping from love, she recognized immediately the oldest sobs in the history of man.”

“She could not make up her mind what would be inside his head and what out. She thought of her own head as a switchbox where she controlled from; but with him, she could only imagine the outside in, the whole black world in his head and his head bigger than the world, his head big enough to include the sky and planets and whatever was or had been or would be.”

“Nothing could quiet a happy crowd of kids like Mr. Holgren's unannounced appearance -- he loved superintending; he was made for it. So when he marched in that morning with a determined look on his face, we froze. Boys and girls recognize sinister as handily as dogs do. Here it was. My best guess now is he'd got it in his head to try "relating" to us -- but when he produced a paper pilgrim's hat from behind his back and put it on his own head, I think we all nearly bolted.”