“paithin- ... he is orn! mother peytin's son, come to lead us to safety!"zifnab- thats it! orn, favors his mother-roland- no, he doesnt. look! hes human! wouldnt mother whats- her - name's kid be and elf- wait!i know! he is one of the lords of thillia! come back to us, like the legend foretold!zifnab- that too! i dont know why i didnt recognize him. the spitting image of his father!”

“He wondered whether he really liked his mother. But she was his mother and this fact was recognized by everybody as meaning automatically that he loved her, and so he took for granted that whatever he felt for her was love. He did not know whether there was any reason why he should respect her judgment. She was his mother; this was supposed to take the place of reasons.”

“Because the man who stood there before us was not our father. He was somebody else, a stranger who had been sent back in our father's place. That's not him, we said to our mother, That's not him, but our mother no longer seemed to hear us..."Did you..." she said. "Every day," he replied. Then he got down on his knees and he took us into his arms...”

“Don't drop him," said Peter's mother to his father. "Don't you dare drop him." She was laughing."I will not," said his father. "I could not." For he is Peter Augustus Duchene, and he will always return to me.Again and again, Peter's father threw him up in the air. Again and again, Peter felt himself suspended in nothingness for a moment, just a moment, and then he was pulled back, returned to the sweetness of the earth and the warmth of his father's waiting arms."See?" said his father to his mother. "Do you see how he always comes back to me?”

“I have looked at my father many times and wondered how he could stand knowing he was my mother’s ruin. He was too weak to leave her. Mother should have thrown him out and saved them both, like Sissy was saving the two of us.”

“Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poemAnd he called it "Chops" because that was the name of his dogAnd that's what it was all aboutAnd his teacher gave him an A and a gold starAnd his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his auntsThat was the year Father Tracy took all the kids to the zooAnd he let them sing on the busAnd his little sister was born with tiny toenails and no hairAnd his mother and father kissed a lotAnd the girl around the corner sent him aValentine signed with a row of X's and he had to ask his father what the X's meantAnd his father always tucked him in bed at nightAnd was always there to do itOnce on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poemAnd he called it "Autumn" because that was the name of the seasonAnd that's what it was all aboutAnd his teacher gave him an A and asked him to write more clearlyAnd his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of its new paintAnd the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigarsAnd left butts on the pewsAnd sometimes they would burn holesThat was the year his sister got glasses with thick lenses and black framesAnd the girl around the corner laughed when he asked her to go see Santa ClausAnd the kids told him why his mother and father kissed a lotAnd his father never tucked him in bed at nightAnd his father got mad when he cried for him to do it.Once on a paper torn from his notebook he wrote a poemAnd he called it "Innocence: A Question" because that was the question about his girlAnd that's what it was all aboutAnd his professor gave him an A and a strange steady lookAnd his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because he never showed herThat was the year that Father Tracy diedAnd he forgot how the end of the Apostle's Creed wentAnd he caught his sister making out on the back porchAnd his mother and father never kissed or even talkedAnd the girl around the corner wore too much makeupThat made him cough when he kissed her but he kissed her anyway because that was the thing to doAnd at three a.m. he tucked himself into bed his father snoring soundlyThat's why on the back of a brown paper bag he tried another poemAnd he called it "Absolutely Nothing"Because that's what it was really all aboutAnd he gave himself an A and a slash on each damned wristAnd he hung it on the bathroom door because this time he didn't think he could reach the kitchen.”