“If a rooster crows while you're thinking about a man," the fortuneteller had once told Maria, "then he's the one you'll marry.”

“So Sophos thinks you're going to marry me.""While I think you'll marry Sophos.""I might. We'll see what he's like when he grows up.”

“He said a fortuneteller had told Mum's fortune once, and after that, she's never gone out on sea again. It was years ago, but she never has. Not once." said Conner"What did the fortuneteller say?" I asked"Dad wouldn't tell me. It must have been something really bad though.""maybe the fortuneteller said that Mum would die by drowning." I suggested."Don't be stupid Saph. A fortuneteller wouldn't ever say that to someone. You’re going to drown, that’ll be ten pounds please”

“A fortuneteller at a magicians' convention in Atlantic City once told him that when he fell in love it would be forever, and he laughed at the notion, but now he sees that reading was completely on target.”

“Then, early, early, early in the morning-just as in countless Disney films-I heard a rooster crow. But guess what? They don't do it just once.”

“Once, walking with him, Paola had stopped and asked him what he was thinking about, and the fact that she was the only person in the world he would not be embarrassed to tell just what it was he had been thinking about at that moment convinced him, though a thousand things had already done so, that this was the woman he wanted to marry, had to marry, would marry.”