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"I am never lonely...Or rather I never suffer from loneliness. I suffer much from the idea that my loneliness might be taken away from me by a lot of mercilessly well meaning people. Of course I never hope that you will understand me, so all I ask is that you do not imagine that you are persuading me into something when you are actually forcing me against my will." (p18)

Another thing about grandmother was her believe that a conversation consisted of someone else listening to her talking, so even mild interruptions seem to her to be some strange, puzzling inversion of the natural order of things, like pigs flying. It baffled her.

Mau had been shocked at this. Every boy wanted to be a warrior, didn’t he?

“You didn’t want to be a warrior?”

“Never. It takes a woman nine months to make a new human. Why waste her effort?”

It can’t be magic, Daphne thought. Magic is just a way of saying “I don’t know.”

Some people would tell you anything if they thought you’d be scared.

He is frightened of me, Mau thought. I haven’t hit him or even raised my hand. I’ve just tried to make him think differently, and now he’s scared. Of thinking. It’s magic.

“It’s a trick!” he said, without thinking.

“Not so loud,” snapped Nawi, glancing back at the shore. “Of course it’s a trick. Building a canoe is a trick. Throwing a spear is a trick. Life is a trick, and you get one chance to learn it.”

She felt better for all that. A good shouting at somebody always makes you feel better and in control, especially if you aren’t.

They didn’t know why these things were funny. Sometimes you laugh because you’ve got no more room for crying. Sometimes you laugh because table manners on a beach are funny. And sometimes you laugh because you’re alive, when you really shouldn’t be.

Daphne thought: I’m learning things. I hope I find out soon what they are.

The most important thing was that time had passed, pouring thousands of soothing seconds across the island. People need time to deal with the now before it runs away and becomes the then. And what they need most of all is nothing much happening.

“Are you trying to be smart, boy?”

“Trying not to be dumb, sir.”