“... character reigns preeminent in determining potential.”

“Louie found the raft offered an unlikely intellectual refuge. He had never recognized how noisy the civilized world was. Here, drifting in almost total silence, with no scents other than the singed odor of the raft, no flavors on his tongue, nothing moving but the slow porcession of shark fins, every vista empty save water and sky, his time unvaried and unbroken, his mind was freed of an encumbrance that civilization had imposed on it. In his head, he could roam anywhere, and he found that his mind was quick and clear, his imagination unfettered and supple. He could stay with a thought for hours, turning it about.”

“When he thought of his history, what resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him.”

“It was not a great presence but a great absence, a geometric ocean of darkness that seemed to swallow heaven itself.”

“His conviction that everything happened for a reason, and would come to good, gave him laughing equanimity even in hard times.”

“His features, which would later settle into pleasant collaboration, was growing at different rates, giving him a curious face that seemed designed by committee.”

“He (Thomas Smith) believed with complete conviction that no animal was permanently ruined. Every horse could be improved. He lived by a single maxim: 'Learn your horse. Each one is an individual, and once you penetrate his mind and heart, you can often work wonders with an otherwise intractable beast.”