... everyone knew that all islands were worlds unto themselves, that to come to an island was to come to another world.

Dave hung up. And unplugged the phone. With a fierce and bitter pain he stared at it, watching how, over and over again, it didn't ring.

There was some sadness in how that could happen, falling out of love with something that had shaped you. Or even people who had.

The deeds of men, as footprints in the desert. Nothing under the circling moons is fated to last. Even the sun goes down.

We worship…the powers that speak to our souls, if it seems they do. We do so knowing there is more to the world, and the half-world, and perhaps worlds beyond, than we can grasp. We always knew that. We can’t even stop children from dying, how would we presume to understand the truth of things? Behind things? Does the presence of one power deny another? [p. 176]

Sometimes you didn't really arrive at a conclusion about your life, you just discovered that you already had.

She had been a solitary child, and then solitary as a woman, drawn into an orbit of her own that took her away from others, even those who would be her friends.