“He liked having the boy there beside him. Like some bright flame of life still burning bright beside the spent lamp of his own spirit.”

“I have found that there are two ways of dealing with men. Either you treat them with respect, or you kill them. Anything in between merely breeds resentment and the desire for revenge.”

“Alan lowered the lamp flame until there was only a glimmer of light in the room. His skin burned with fever as he climbed into bed beside Huiann. He felt like a groom on his wedding night except, he reminded himself, there would be no copulation. None. Not tonight.”

“A man of honor does swiftly that which must be done.”

“To care about words, to have a stake in what is written, to believe in the power of books - this overwhelms the rest, and beside it one's life becomes very small.”

“Why Brownlee left, and where he went,Is a mystery even now.For if a man should have been contentIt was him; two acres of barley,One of potatoes, four bullocks,A milker, a slated farmhouse.He was last seen going out to ploughOn a March morning, bright and early.By noon Brownlee was famous;They had found all abandoned, withThe last rig unbroken, his pair of blackHorses, like man and wife,Shifting their weight from foot toFoot, and gazing into the future.”

“I have learned to have very modest goals for society and myself; things like clean air, green grass, children with bright eyes, not being pushed around, useful work that suits one's abilities, plain tasty food, and occasional satisfying nookie.”