"On warm days the voices of the choir - especially the high tremulous voices of the oldest singers - would float into the darkness of the barn like the thick, sweet aroma of meadow flowers."
p. 2

"Ned decided that the worst thing you could do to a person was not to say why you were angry with him."
p. 6

"[Ned] was pretty sure [Mrs. Scallop] had been listening to them, that she often eavesdropped, and that whatever she heard filled her up like a big supper."
p. 24

"The painful thing was that, though Ned didn't always trust his father, his father trusted him, and that seemed to him unfair, although he couldn't explain why it was so."
p. 40

"A lie was so tidy, like a small box you could make with nails and thin pieces of wood and glue. But the truth lay sprawled all over the place...