“The library was my only blessing. Every time I climbed the stairs, my heart lifted. All day, I looked forward to the happy hours I spent in that beautiful room. My guilt over appa's fate was too he...”

“Between the beach and the big breaking waves about a quarter mile off was a stretch of bumpy, glistening reef, its usual blanket of water pulled back by a celestial hand.”

“Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.”

“Just because something is a metaphor doesn't mean it can't be real.”

“A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel reader is not prepared to give.”

“Prose divides shame into stations.”

“He lifted his arm that had been resting on her shoulders and gazed at the words she had written on his hand. He had been branded as cattle are branded to show whom they belong to. The cold mountain...”