Sometimes, the waves grow hushed, but the sea is always there, touching, caressing, eating the earth… — Keri Hulme

Hands are sacred things. Touch is personal, fingers of love, feelers of blind eyes, tongues of those who cannot talk. (chapter 2, p71)

They were nothing more than people, by themselves. Even paired, any pairing, they would have been nothing more than people by themselves. But all together, they have become the heart and muscles and mind of something perilous and new, something strange and growing and great. Together, all together, they are the instruments of change. (from the Prologue, p4)

Between waking and being awake there is a moment full of doubt and dream, when you struggle to remember what the place and when the time and whether you really are. A peevish moment of wonderment as to where the real world lies. (chapter 1)