“This is Masher,' said Feeney. 'His father was a wild boar, his mother was surprised.”

“The wild women in his lap,' my father enthused, 'laying their breasts on his head.'There was a moment of stunned silence. Then my mother spoke slowly, with an edge to her voice. 'I think you mean "wild beasts laying their heads in his lap".''Do I?”

“Don't drop him," said Peter's mother to his father. "Don't you dare drop him." She was laughing."I will not," said his father. "I could not." For he is Peter Augustus Duchene, and he will always return to me.Again and again, Peter's father threw him up in the air. Again and again, Peter felt himself suspended in nothingness for a moment, just a moment, and then he was pulled back, returned to the sweetness of the earth and the warmth of his father's waiting arms."See?" said his father to his mother. "Do you see how he always comes back to me?”

“He cannot have God for his Father who will not have the Church for his mother.”

“His father was self-made, but his mother was constructed by others, and such edifices are notoriously fragile.”

“They called him John Storm: John after his grandfather, but Storm after his father and his mother.”