“Stories are thick with meanings. You can fall in love with a story for what you think it says, but you can't know for certain where it will lead your listeners. If you're telling a tale to teach children to be generous, they may fix instead on the part where your hero hides in an olive jar, then spend the whole next day fighting about who gets to try it first.People take what they need from the stories they hear. The tale is often wiser than the teller.”

“And in my head I laid out the stories the islanders told me... the flakes of silver, the seals who are wiser than humans, the girl who floated like a patchwork star.”

“We have our stories, and we speak of them, and weave them into other people's stories - that's how it goes, does it not?”

“I hoarded all the stories that reflected the light and dazzled me.”

“Your heart's voice is your true voice. It is easy to ignore it, for sometimes it says what we'd rather it did not - and it is so hard to risk the things we have. But what life are we living, if we don't live by our hearts? Not a true one. And the person living it is not the true you.”

“So I was for stories. I was for stries just as gannets were for balls of silver-flashing fish - I'd crash towards them, gaping. I'd try for as many as I could. And I'd keep them safe like feathers in a vase... They have been my comfort. My family. My strange nourishment.”

“Which people take the time to care for their souls, these days? I reckon not many. But...hear this: I think that maybe in our lives -- in our scrabbling for food, in the washing of our bodies and warming of them, in our small daily battles -- we can forget our souls. We do not tend to them, as if they matter less. But I don't think they matter less.”