“But in these woods it's best to believe in all possibilities. There's more in these woods than a man can ever hope to understand.”

“If he expected an answer - and he wasn't certain that he didn't - he was disappointed. He told himself he had imagined the voice in the wind. The Windigo was a myth.But there was a part of him that knew different. Sam Winter Moon has cautioned him long ago that it was best to believe in all possibilities, that there were more mysteries in the world than a man could ever hope to understand.”

“Once someone's dead, being sorry doesn't cut it. If you hit a man, you can apologize. If you destroy his property, you can pay him back. But if you take his life, there's nothing you can ever do to make that right. Do you understand?”

“I have a good feeling about this. Somehow, it's all going to turn out for the best.""I wish I did," Cork said."Maybe that's the difference between the law and religion. I hope for the best, you're prepared for the worst.”

“To kill the Windigo, Meloux had said, you must become a Windigo, too.A man was never just a man. A man was endless possibility waiting to become.”

“That night, as Cork lay in his bedroll, he thought about the bear they were after. He was glad Sam had changed his mind about killing the great animal, but he hoped they would at least see it. He thought about the Windigo, which was something he hoped he would not see. And he thought about his father, whom he would never see again. These were all elements of his life, and although they were separate things, they were now intertwined somehow like the roots of a tree. All his life he would remember the bear hunt with Sam Winter Moon. In some manner he didn't quite understand, the hunt had opened a way in him for the grief to begin passing through. All his life he would be grateful to his father's friend.”

“It's not a question anymore of fishing," Sam spoke up. "It's a question of what's right, Cork. We've bent like reeds in a river for generations, bent so far over we've just about forgot how to stand up straight. Look at us now. None of us has ever been so proud of being a Shinnob.”