“The past was the past; there was no escaping your beginnings.”

“Beginnings could happen more than once, or in different ways.”

“There was no escaping what he had realized as he fought for warmth in the night. With or without him,the moon and the wind would go on, rising and falling. The land would keep stretching ahead until it hit the sea. People would keep dying. It made no difference if Harold walked, or trembled, or stayed at home.”

“I miss her all the time. I know in my head that she has gone. The only difference is that I am getting used to the pain. It's like discovering a great hole in the ground. To begin with, you forget it's there and keep falling in. After a while, it's still there, but you learn to walk round it.”

“It surprised him that he was remembering all this. Maybe it was the walking. Maybe you saw even more than the land when you got out of the car and used your feet.”

“I've begun to think that we sit far more than we're supposed to...Why else would we have feet?”

“He had never been good at expressing himself. What he felt was so big it was difficult to find the words, and even if he could, it was hardly appropriate to write them to someone he had not contacted in twenty years.”