“Her heartbeat was in her hands, her heart beat the way she moved her head, her whole body was her heart beating.”

“The fates lead her who will; who won't they drag.”

“A person without her or his own truth ain't a person at all, Ida said. Anybody who tells you different—is a jackass, and no longer deserves to be called human being.”

“So I'm smoking in the house, Mother said. And Bobbie's got a dog in her room. And your son Will's got an Injun in his. So there it is, Mother said. Like it or lump it!”

“I remembered looking down into her face, her eyes bright with new adventure and a little piece of my heart fell into her hands. My heart tumbled in pieces at her feet as she chipped away at it with her wondrous ways, and it didn’t form a whole again until half a year had passed and the end product was a living, beating organ in the palm of her hands.”

“My heart tumbled in pieces at her feet as she chipped away at it with her wondrous ways, and it didn't form a whole again until half a year had passed and the end product was a living, beating organ in the palm of her hands.”

“The Shy Hunter is terrified that others will destroy the truth within his heart, Rose said, And so the Shy Hunter armours himself ... thus armoured, he watches and waits and studies the world meticulously, hunting the world for prey ... Prey not in the sense of devouring or murder, Rose said, But prey in the sense of hunting for sore truths within another human heart.”