A familiar name on its own, however, does not carry its bearer far unless the talent is there, and the will to work.

I wish I was a woman of about thirty-six dressed in black satin with a string of pearls.

I could fight with the living but I could not fight the dead. If there was some woman in London that Maxim loved, someone he wrote to, visited, dined with, slept with, I could fight her. We would stand on common ground. I should not be afraid. Anger and jealousy were things that could be conquered. One day the woman would grow old or tired or different, and Maxim would not love her anymore. But Rebecca would never grow old. Rebecca would always be the same. And she and I could not fight. She was to strong for me.

I held out my arms to him and he came to me like a child.

She knew that this was happiness, this was living as she had always wished to live.

Watch that boy. He's going to startle somebody someday.

[Referring to the birds:] Nat listened to the tearing sound of splintering wood, and wondered how many million years of memory were stored in those little brains, behind the stabbing beaks, the piercing eyes, now giving them this instinct to destroy mankind with all the deft precision of machines.