If a crowd can flinch, they flinch. More than a thousand men flinch under the fist of just one. I don't see what the women do.

You be as angry as you need to be,” she said. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not your grandma, not your dad, no one. And if you need to break things, then by God, you break them good and hard.

The sound when we crash is so loud it's almost impossible.

if one of us falls, we all fall

Her accent's funny, different from mine, different from anyone in Prentisstown's. Her lips make different kinds of outlines for the letters, like they're swooping down on them from above, pushing them into shape, telling them what to say. In Prentisstown, everyone talks like they're sneaking up on their words, ready to club them from behind.

That's what I want as a reader - I want to be confident that the book will do its job.

Here is the boy, drowning.