“He knows that something somewhere has to break/He sees the family home now looming in the headlights/The pain upstairs that makes his eyeballs ache/Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage/on the shore of a dark Scottish lake”

“Wait a minute, there's a snag somewhere; something disagreeable. Why, now, should it be disagreeable?...Ah,I see; it's life without a break.”

“The mister days that letters are the key, but even when you know the whole family, there's so many combinations you can make. And they break their word.”

“He turns his back to the far shore and rows toward it. He can in this way travel away from, yet still see, his house....he feels he is riding a floating skeleton...Some birds in the almost-dark are flying as close to their reflections as possible.”

“There was no warning, not even a knock. The door flew open, and he forgot his present aches and pains in anticipation of what lay in store. The figure that stood in the door was not that of an enemy. It was worse. It was his mother.”

“There's never been a moment," he barely said, "when I didn't recognize you."She wiped her eyes. Her mascara smeared. He nudged the merry-to-round into motion. He could kiss her now. If he wanted."I'd know you in the dark," he said. "From a thousand miles away. There's nothing you could become that I haven't already fallen in love with."He could kiss her."I know you," he said.”