“What your problem is, you're all just a raindrop. One of an endless number. If only you'd just accept it, things would be so much easier. Say it with me: I am a drop in the ocean. I am neighbour, nation, north, and nowhere. I am one among many and we all fall together.Or maybe I'm just a rat with wings and I don't know what I'm talking about.”

“Say it with me: I am a drop in the ocean. I am neighbour, nation, north and nowhere. I am one among many and we all fall together.”

“...you all want to be the sea. But you're not the sea, you're just a raindrop.”

“If Agnes dies I'll just swap places with her. She can have my life. I'll give it to her and I'll die instead. I wouldn't mind because I've already lived for a long time. Agnes has only lived for one year and some. I hope God lets me. I don't mind going to Heaven early. If he wants me to swap places, I will.”

“I put my alligator tooth down the rubbish pipe. I heard it fall down to the bottom and disappear. It was an offering for the volcano god. It was a present for God himself. If I gave him my best good luck then he'd save us from all the bad things, the sickness and chooking and dead babies, he'd bring us all back together again. He'd have to or it wouldn't be fair. It was a good swap, nobody could say it wasn't. I knew it would work. Thank you pigeon for showing me the right star.”

“I saw her when I came back... Her eyes were closed and everything. I had to stop.I just watched her. It was very relaxing. I had to keep proper still. I had to be extra quiet or I'd ruin it. I didn't want it to stop. I could see her lips move but I couldn't hear the words. Sometimes she bent forward until her head was nearly on the ground. She made everything to proper slow. It made me sleepy from just watching it. I wanted to ask her what she was praying for but I swallowed the words back down again. ...you knew it had to be something good. I just watched from behind the wall. There was nobody else around. It was the best kind of quiet... When the head-tie girl finished praying she opened her eyes and stood up. I turned aroun sharp-sharp and went back down the corridor. I tried not to make a sound. I didn't want her to see me. I didn't want her to know I was there for if it ruined it. I waited until she was gone, then I came back to life. I held my breath when I went past the bit she was praying in. I walked around the outside so I didn't tread on it.”

“It's much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change and friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody. I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe shrug at how strange everybody was, especially me. I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and than make the choice to share it with other people. You can't just sit their and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things. I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to be who I really am. And I'm going to figure out what that is. And we could all sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a lot of people for what they did or didn't do or what they didn't know. I don't know. I guess there could always be someone to blame. It's just different. Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Because it's okay to feel things. I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite. I feel infinite.”