“Under Capitalism the most important thing is to squeeze out more and more money for a few people to spend. This means that most of the other people -- as well as the earth and the sea and all the creatures and plants and goggas -- have to pay the price.”

“I felt the full breadth and depth of the ocean around the sphere of the Earth, back billions of years to the beginning of life, across all the passing lives and deaths, the endless waves of swimming joy and quiet losses of exquisite creatures with fins and fronds, tentacles and wings, colourful and transparent, tiny and huge, coming and going. There is nothing the ocean has not seen”

“Life (like love) is forgiving and hopeful and, like a bold flower pushing out from the narrow crevice in a rock, will take any gap we allow. However small or large.”

“Few people can claim they are born into the right period of history. Most of us have to make do with the times we find ourselves in.”

“Otis, at last, removed his eyes from Jane. "All very well, my friend, but I must side with Miss Clarke here. The soldiers in this town have been treated abominably."The table went still.Otis went on. "Admit it, Freeman. Mud throwing and name-calling are one thing, but the courts - any flimsy charge against a soldier upheld, outrageous fines put down - criminal! The law must not be conscripted to serve one particular cause. To lost the law is to lose the fight.""With respect, sir," Nate said, "I say when a people are under an illegal occupation they must fight with what they've got to hand."Aunt Gill said, "And what have we got to hand but a few stories in the paper?"Jane looked at her aunt in surprise. Another we."We have the people, Aunt," Nate answered her. "Thirty thousand from all the outlying towns, ready to march at a minute's notice, and all it takes to call them is a flaming barrel of pitch on the beacon hill.”

“To become a writer a person must read constantly, the more varied the writers and their material then all the better. One must also have a lot of life experience, travel to exotic locations and live among the local people. Yet most importantly a writer needs the determination to keep at their writing regardless of what others might say or think about it”

“In a capitalist society there are always inequalities of class and wealth. People who inherit money and property will always see themselves as being superior to those who have to work for it.”