“It was an ill-omened place. Death walked there in the sunlight.”

“All primitive people are frightened of owls,' said Harley. 'The villagers here are scared to death of the gufo. Birds of ill omen. If they see one, they think they'll die. But they never do. See one, I mean, of course,' he added with a laugh.”

“You are a bird of ill-omen, thought Kelso. You circle the world and wherever you land there is famine and death and destruction: in an earlier and less credulous age, the local citizens would have gathered at the first sight of you and driven you off with stones -”

“Human love…it is that extra creation that stands hurt and baffled at the place of death. Being human, wanting children and sunlight and breath to go on, forever.”

“But, for a little while, this is the place for us -- a good place too--a place of good omen, a place of beginning things--and of ending things I never thought would end.”

“The body's ills are the least of ills, for they end only in death, which is but a little thing. But if the spirit dies, then all is lost.”