“Happiness is an accident of nature, a beautiful and flawless aberration.”

“Southerners had a long tradition of looking for religious significance in even the most humble forms of nature, and I always preferred the explanations of folklore to the icy interpretations of sci...”

“I cannot express how lordly and transfigured I felt at that moment. I was a prince of that harbor, a porpoise king - slim among the buoys and the water traffic.”

“This [sand-dollar hunting] had become one of our rituals together, and though she would search for other varieties of shells when I was out of town or unable to see her, she would wait until I appe...”

“I loved these salt rivers more than I loved the sea; I loved the movement of tides more than I loved the fury of surf. Something in me was congruent with this land, something affirmed when I witnes...”

“It was in her garden that whatever physical grace Abigail St. Croix possessed asserted itself. She moved among her flowers with consummate natural fluidity, enjoying the incommunicable pleasures of...”

“The river was so blue it seemed to be breathing.”

“a single-file army of ants biting a mammoth tree into uniform grains and hauling it down to the dark for their ravenous queen. and, in reply, a choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted ...”

“Love is the beauty of being.”

“When you find your path in life and are in sync with your primary missions in this lifetime, everything else just falls into place.”

“Discovering and fulfilling your personal destiny is lifes ultimate challenge and its greatest reward.”

“I told you. You don't love someone because of their looks or their clothes or their car. You love them because they sing a song only your heart can understand.”

“The isolation spins its mysterious cocoon, focusing the mind on one place, one time, one rhythm - the turning of the light. The island knows no other human voices, no other footprints. On the Offsh...”

“It was the inverse of an island in the sea.”

“The sweet-smelling aroma of the island spices still hung in the air. It filled his nostrils and titillated his appetite all over again. His appetite drove him mad for something much more than food.”