“Die slowly, Tom.”

“Take one vial of my blood and I will not die. But if you continue taking it, one vial at a time... slowly... I will die, slowly. But make no mistake. I will die. It is the same with my rights.”

“Why, Tom - us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people - we go on.''We take a beatin' all the time.''I know.' Ma chuckled. 'Maybe that makes us tough. Rich fellas come up an' they die, an' their kids ain't no good, an' they die out. But, Tom, we keep a-comin'. Don' you fret none, Tom. A different time's comin'.”

“Tom watched with his arms folded as the life that had been within Kobe died out, and the fire continued.”

“Tom te tom tom, tom te tom.' zong Frits in zichzelf, 'het gaat slecht, verder gaat het goed.”

“It was a real whale, a photograph of a real whale. I looked into its tiny wise eye and wondered where that eye was now. Was it alive and swimming, or had it died long ago, or was it dying now, right this second? When a whale dies, it falls down through the ocean slowly, over the course of a day. All the other fish see it fall, like a giant statue, like a building, but slowly, slowly.”