This land was an enigma. It was like a horse that no one knows how to break to harness, that runs wild and kicks things to pieces.

I wanted to walk straight on through the red grass and over the edge of the world, which could not be very far away. The light and air abot me told me that the world ended here: only the ground and sun and sky were left, and if one went a little farther there would only be sun and sky, and one would float off into them, like the tawny hawks which sailed over our heads making slow shadows on the grass.

The voice is a wild thing. It can't be bred in captivity.

I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.

I first met Myra Henshawe when I was fifteen, but I had known her about ever since I could remember anything at all.

Yet the summer which was to change everything was coming nearer every day. When boys and girls are growing up, life can't stand still, not even in the quietest of country towns; and they have to grow up, whether they will or no. That is what their elders are always forgetting.

[Dawn] is always such a forgiving time. When that first cold, bright streak comes over the water, it's as if all our sins were pardoned; as if the sky leaned over the earth and kissed it and gave it absolution.