“Tamsen lay listening to the crashing of the waves on the beach, the symphony of the ocean competing with the orchestral maneuvers of the first birds singing in the dawn.”

“This is rock ‘n’ roll, Mags. It don't understand discreet. - Julian MacAvoy”

“And wouldn't you know he'd be a singing man.”

“Today, I will be happier than a bird with a french fry.”

“I am charmed by the idea that there is an activity known as work and another as play, although even in grade school the distinction eluded me. I remember how full of hope I was sitting in first-period home room listening to the teacher divide up our activities into purposeful sections. I got a grip on her process, at last, by picturing it in the following way: A cow stands in clover. When she is milked, that is her work; when she is merely eating, that is her play. But the problem lay, then as now, in the realization that, in any case, she is standing in clover. Not a handsome or elegant analogy, but it approximates for me the habit of reading - standing in a world of clover, the eating of which is occasionally utilitarian, usually nourishing, because that's what one does”

“The freezing in hell that comes before the everlasting fire where sinners bubble and singe forever.”

“It would be ten years before they saw each other again, and their meeting would be thick with birds.”