"Listening, not speaking, has been my way. I have become most proficient in it. My mother taught me the use of silence."
Part 1, Section 1, p. 4

"So it is, out here on this island, where we dwell with our faces to the sea and our backs to the wilderness. Like Adam's family after the fall, we have all things to do. We must be fettler, baker, apothecary, grave digger. Whatever the task, we must do it, or else do without."
Ibid, p. 5

"When I look at my hands and wrists, marred by the marks of small burns from cook pots and flying embers, every red weal or white pucker brings to my mind's eye that eternal fire, and the writing masses of the damned, among whom I must expect to spend eternity."
Ibid, p. 7

"We named the things of this place in reference to things that were not of...