"It's here on my desk, beside the computer. I use it as a paperweight. I often pick it up and turn it in my hands, rereading that inscription. If the iron collar could talk, I think to myself, what kind of story would it tell?"
Prologue, p. x

"'I've got to go away. I can't stay here, after all that. My pride won't let me. I'd be a constant reminder, to every young man in the glen, that the Jamissons cannot be defied. I must leave.'"
Chap. 5, p. 39

"It was evilly bad luck that this should happen today. It was his birthday: he was leaving. Now he wished he had thrown caution to the winds and left the glen on Sunday night."
Chap. 8, pp. 71-72

"If you want Jay's coal, you have to give him something for it. And what he wants is the plantation. If you...