“I went down not long agoto the Mad River, under the willowsI knelt and drank from that crumpled flow, call itwhat madness you will, there's a sicknessworse than the risk of death and that'sforgetting what we should never forget.Tecumseh lived here.The wounds of the pastare ignored, but hang onlike the litter that snags among the yellow branches,newspapers and plastic bags, after the rains.Where are the Shawnee now?Do you know? Or would you have to write to Washington, and even then,whatever they said,would you believe it? SometimesI would like to paint my body red and go intothe glittering snowto die.His name meant Shooting Star.From Mad River country north to the borderhe gathered the tribesand armed them one more time. He vowedto keep Ohio and it took himover twenty years to fail.After the bloody and final fighting, at Thames,it was over, excepthis body could not be found,and you can do whatever you want with that, sayhis people came in the black leaves of the nightand hauled him to a secret grave, or thathe turned into a little boy again, and leapedinto a birch canoe and wentrowing home down the rivers. Anywaythis much I'm sure of: if we meet him, we'll know it,he will still beso angry.”

“I told you before, Jem, that you would not leave me," Will said, his bloody hand on the hilt of the dagger. " And you are still with me. When I breath, I will think of you, for without you I would have been dead years ago. When I wake up and when I sleep, when I lift up my hands to defend myself or when I lie down to die, you will be with me. You say we are born again. I say there is a river that divides the dead and the living. What I do know is that if we are born again, I will meet you in another life, if there is a river, you will wait on the shores for me to come to you, so we can cross together." Will took a deep breath and let go of the knife. He drew his hand back. The cut on his palm was already healing- the result of the half dozen iratzes on his skin. " You hear that, James Carstairs? We are bound, you and I, over the divide of death, down through whatever generations may come. Forever." He rose to his feet and looked down at the knife. The knife was Jem's, the blood was his. This spot of ground, whether he could ever find it again, whether he lived to try, would be theirs.He turned around to walk to Balios, towards Wales and Tessa. He did not look back.”

“Cheshire Puss,' [Alice] began, rather timidly, "`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked. Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.' How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice. You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.' Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on `And how do you know that you're mad?' To begin with,' said the Cat, `a dog's not mad. You grant that?' I suppose so,' said Alice. Well, then,' the Cat went on, `you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.”

“Even now, as I write this, I can still feel that tightness. And I want you to feel it--the wind coming off the river, the waves, the silence, the wooded frontier. You're at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River. You're twenty-one years old, you're scared, and there's a hard squeezing pressure in your chest.What would you do?Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did?”

“I'm a little mad. He shouldn't have said whatever he said to make you so upset. But we should try not to judge people based on one instance.”

“You must do whatever you think is best. But I know one thing. Nothing meant more to Graystripe than your friendship and his Clan. Even when he was in RiverClan, he longed to go home. He would want to see ThunderClan as strong as it could possibly be, even if that meant accepting that he's not coming back.”