“The earth is black in front of the cliff, and no orchids grow.Creepers crawl in the brown mud by the path.Where did the birds of yesterday fly?To what other mountain did the animals go?Leopards and pythons dislike this ruined spot;Cranes and snakes avoid the desolation.My criminal thoughts of those days pastBrought on the disaster of today.”

“So I guess maybe that’ll be the next step in evolution – to break clean like those first amphibians who crawled out of the mud into the sunshine, and who never did go back to the sea.”

“Yesterday, I never believed I'd do what I did today.”

“Can the leopard change his spots?” Emrys mused. “Leopards have, but the other leopards don’t like it.”

“That place where I was born was a cold town. Even the mountains stood away. They were not sure, no more than me, of that dark spot, those same mountains.There was a black river that flowed through the town, and if it had no grace for mortal beings, it did for swans, and many swans resorted there, and even rode the river like some kind of plunging animal, in floods.”

“If you're talking about what you did yesterday, you're not doing much today.”