“Can you do any nature sounds, birdcalls?""Birdcalls?" He'd cracked from the pressure. "In case you need me.”

“My entrance into the courtyard caused a small stir among the lookouts. I could tell because in the middle of February, in the dark of night, Baxter Terrace suddenly sounded like an Audubon Society refuge - birdcalls being the latest in urban drug - selling counterintelligence...Birdcalls allowed much more information to be imparted to other members of the operation, without the visitor being aware of what was being communicated. So while a crow's harsh cry could harken the arrival of a member of the city narcotics unit - a significant threat - the sweet song of a chickadee might signal an officer who was merely escorting a social worker to an appointment allowing business to continue in guarded fashion. Someone like me, a stranger on unknown business, might warrant a whipporwill's call. Where exactly a city kid learned what a whipporwill sounded like, I have no idea. But these kids were nothing if not resourceful. It makes you wonder what they could have accomplished under different circumstances.”

“Give up the idea that by ruling over others you can do any good to them. But you can do just as much as you can in the case of the plant: you can supply the growing seed with the materials for the making up of its body, bringing to it the earth, the water, the air, that it wants. It will take all that it wants by its own nature, it will assimilate and grow by its own nature.”

“Pompeii has nothing to teach us,we know crack of volcanic fissure,slow flow of terrible lava,pressure on heart, lungs, the brainabout to burst its brittle case(what the skull can endure!)”

“What are you gonna do with a giant crossword poster? 'Oh, I'm sorry, Anna. I can't go to the movies tonight. I'm working on two thousand across, Norwegian Birdcall.'""At least I'm not buying a Large Plastic Rock for hiding 'unsightly utility posts.' You realize you have no lawn?""I could hide other stuff. Like...failed French tests. Or illegal moonshining equipment." He couples over with that wonderful boyish laugher, and I grin. "But what will you do with a motorized swimming-pool snack float?""Use it in the bathtub.”

“Well,if there's nothing else you ladies need in the library, Sophie, would you care to accompany me on a walk about the grounds?"I wondered if there were ever times when Dad didn't sound like he'd just escaped from a Jane Austen novel.”