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

“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.”

“It's for personal reasons," I say stiffly, which is what my mother had always told me to say about things that had to do with fighting with your brothers, getting any sort of illness that had intestinal ramifications, starting your period, and money.”

“She kissed me harder, breath huffing into my mouth, and bit my lip. Oh, hell that was amazing. I growled before I could stop myself.”

“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 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.”

“If I only have ten minutes, Sam, this is what I want to say. You're not the best of us. You're more than that. You're better than all of us. If I only have ten minutes, I would tell you to go out there and live. I'd say...please take your guitar and sing your songs to as many people as you can. Please fold a thousand more of those damn birds of yours. Please kiss that girl a million times.”