“I hear laughter and someone asks if I need help, not in a nice way. I snarl, 'What I need is for your mother to have thought a little harder nine months before your birthday.”

“What I need is for your mother to have thought a little harder nine months before your birthday.”

“Tell me what to wish for." Tell me what to ask the sea for.""To be happy. Happiness.""I don't think such a thing is had on Thisby. And if it is, I don't know how you would keep it.""You whisper to it. What it needs to hear. Isn't that what you said?""That's what I said. What do I need to hear?""That tomorrow we'll rule the Scorpio Races as king and queen of Skarmouth and I'll save the house and you'll have your stallion. Dove will eat golden oats for the rest of her days and you will terrorize the races each year and people will come from every island in the world to find out how it is you get horses to listen to you. The piebald will carry Mutt Malvern into the sea and Gabriel will decide to stay on the island. I will have a farm and you will bring me bread for dinner.""That's what I needed to hear.”

“I needed paper. I couldn’t think without writing my thoughts down.”

“I was thinking lots of things, but most of them needed to stay thoughts, not words.”

“I thought, possibly, that what I really needed was to go where nobody knew me and start over again, with none of my previous decisions, conversations, or expectations coming with me.”

“Inside the house, I turned on the kitchen light, revealing the photographs stuck every which way all over the cabinets, and then switched on the hall light. In my head, I heard Beck say to my small nine-year-old self, 'Why do we need every light in the house on? Are you signaling to aliens?”