"My first night in steerage I learned that I was not born to sleep on water. The berth was both too short and too narrow for me, so that I had to kink myself radically, curl up and wedge in at the same time." Scotland and Helena, p. 9

"Vare Barclay promised me full clerkwork whenever the times found their way from bad to good again, Adam Willox promised I could come in with him as a schoolkeeper whenever pupils grew ample enough again. But promises never filled the oatmeal bowl." Scotland and Helena, p. 17

"I knew something new now. That simply being afraid was nowhere near so bad as being afraid and retching your socks up at the same time." Scotland and Helena, p. 20

"No human sign was anywhere around, except for the tiny pair of homesteads just above the mouth of the North Fork, one of them...