“What do you know of poetry?” Ambrose said without bothering to turn around. “I know a limping verse when I hear it,” I said. “But this isn’t even limping. A limp has rhythm. This is more like someone falling down a set of stairs. Uneven stairs. With a midden at the bottom.” “It is a sprung rhythm,” he said, his voice stiff and offended. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” “Sprung?” I burst out with an incredulous laugh. “I understand that if I saw a horse with a leg this badly ‘sprung,’ I’d kill it out of mercy, then burn its poor corpse for fear the local dogs might gnaw on it and die.”

“My God-- life! Who can understand even one little minute of it?''Don't try,' he said. 'Just pretend you understand.''That's-- that's very good advice.' I went limp.”

“I-I didn't..." Derek began.He scrambled from under Liam. The werewolf's body fell, limp, to the side, his head twisted, neck broken.Derek swallowed. The sound echoed in the silence. "I didn't-- I just-- I was trying to stop him.""You didn't mean it," I said softly. "But he did."He looked at me, eyes refusing to focus."He would have killed you," I said."Killed both of us, if it came down to it. You might not have meant to do it, but..."I didn't finish. I could have said the world was better off without Liam, but we both knew the point wasn't whether Liam deserved to die, but whether Derek deserved the guilt of killing someone. He didn't.”

“He’s just a good all-around horse. He aint a finished horse but I think he’ll make a cow horse. I’m pleased to hear it. Of course your preference is for one that’ll bow up like a bandsaw and run head first into the barn wall.John Grady smiled. Horse of my dreams, he said. It aint exactly like that.How is it then?I don’t know. I think it’s just somethin you like. Or don’t like. You can add up all of a horse’s good points on a sheet of paper and it still wont tell you whether you’ll like the horse or not.What about if you add up all his bad ones?I don’t know. I’d say you’d probably done made up your mind at that point.You think there’s horses so spoiled you cant do nothin with em?Yes I do. But probably not as many as you might think.Maybe not. You think a horse can understand what a man says?You mean like words?I don’t know. Like can he understand what he says.John Grady looked out the window. Water was beaded on the glass. Two bats were hunting in the barnlight. No, he said. I think he can understand what you mean.”

“Pass me the Academy Award. I don’t know how I did it, but hysterical-girl tears sprung from my eyes as I ran out of the room and down the grand staircase.”

“Why shouldn't Mom trust me, Dad" Why are you so determined to make me out to be the bad guy all the time?" I stared at the side of his face, willing him to make eye contact. He didn't. "I've been doing really good late and you don't even care.""Yet you still managed to get into trouble tonight," he said."You have no idea what happened tonight," I said, my voice ratcheting up a notch. "All you know is that, because I was involved, I'm somehow guilty of something. You could at least pretend to care, you know. You could at least try to understand."Dad gave a sardonic little laugh. "I'll tell you what I understand," he said. "I understand that when you're left to your own devices you get into trouble, that's what I understand. I understand I was trying to have a happy, restful evening with Briley and once again you screwed it up.”