“I want to tell you a story about my mother, although of course it is also mine - inherited, along with dangly earlobes and a horror of deep water.”

“Our house has its back to the sea,' writes Hester in her journal. 'Below us, the ocean spreads to the sky, twitching wide and blue and hungry. One would think it to be infinite. But we, of course, know better.”

“We're all made to the same pattern. Knitted up like a thrifty housewife's sock from scraps - random unravelled bits of yarn that used to make someone else, chance combinations from the hand-me-down wardrobes of dead strangers.But surely the execution must have an effect? After all, some knit better than others. I could never master it myself.”

“I tell you what I won't put up with. You chose how to behave.”

“Peter." The fine hair along her spine rising, Vicky could feel the power in a name. This is who you are, it said. Come back to us.”

“[I] get [yo]ur point about how people can[']t save each other for real.[B]ut I still think we need stories that tell us we can.[J]ust so we won[']t stop trying.”

“It took him forever to get to downtown Vancouver although Tony had to admit that saving the world by public transportation was a particularly Canadian way to do things.”