“Most [Shetland patterns] are fairly small and simple, as textile patterns go. Almost all are symmetrical, with eight smaller parts. As a result, most are geometric rather than representational. ... One last feature, less easy to define but easy enough to recognise ... is the liking for little motifs and for a pattern to be 'finished'. ”

“Advice for New KnittersWhen choosing a pattern, look for ones that have words such as "simple", "basic", and "easy". If you see the words "intriguing", "challenging", or "intricate", look elsewhere. If you happen across a pattern that says "heirloom", slowly put down the pattern and back away."Heirloom" is knitting code for "This pattern is so difficult that you would consider death a relief".”

“It has occured to Charlotte that men are full of petulant nonsense,and that their supposed strength is rather less than a girl's.”

“Your thoughts construct patterns like scaffolding in your mind. You are really etching chemical patterns. In most cases, people get stuck in those patterns, just like grooves in a record, and they never get out of them.”

“Behold the stars and planets all making their grand patterns above while the waves beneath play others; then there are the patterns in and between the patterns. Are they all synchronistic. . . . Can such a thing as one pattern be distilled from all? . . . the patterns seem harmonic and chaotic, in mind as in matter.”

“Creating consent (hegemony) is never a simple act. It is rather the result of the social structures and the cultural patterns that dictates for each group its behavior and for each institutions its practices.”

“Finally Exi spoke. "There are some important things to remember always, no matter how hard life presses at you. One of these things is that wherever you are, and no matter for how long, there must be a home to hold you. You cannot know who you are unless you are contained in some way that gives you shape. Otherwise you are like a small wind, or like water losing itself in sand." He paused thoughtfully, looking at us, who had all stopped to listen. "You see," he continued, "at any place or time we have no way of knowing if we will be there a day or a week. We must let our destiny come to us. In one sense this is always true. Therefore it is needful for each of us to be defined-to live, not just wait to live. Do you understand?”