"Mau had been shocked at this. Every boy wanted to be a warrior, didn’t he? “You didn’t want to be a warrior?” “Never.…"

"Normally people tended to be very quiet in the parish church. Perhaps they were afraid of waking God up in case He as…"

"Some people would tell you anything if they thought you’d be scared."

"“It’s a trick!” he said, without thinking. “Not so loud,” snapped Nawi, glancing back at the shore. “Of course it’s a…"

"Her father had said that if you knew where to look, you could find Mrs. Ethel J. Bundy’s Birthday Island, and loaned …"

"He believed in rational thinking and scientific inquiry, which was why he never won an argument with his mother, who …"

"Another thing about grandmother was her believe that a conversation consisted of someone else listening to her talkin…"

"And perhaps at the other end of the world there is a place where the screaming can’t be heard, and I may find it in m…"

"They didn’t know why these things were funny. Sometimes you laugh because you’ve got no more room for crying. Sometim…"

"There had been a great wave before, everyone said. It turned up in the stories of the Time When Things Were Otherwise…"