"Every lobster one man catches is a lobster another man has lost. It is a mean business, and it makes for mean men. As humans, after all, we become that which we seek. Dairy farming makes men steady and reliable and temperate; deer hunting makes men quiet and fast and sensitive; lobster fishing makes men suspicious and wily and ruthless" (Prologue, pg. 5.)

"Senator Simon Addams looked into the bassinet, and there she was: little Ruth Thomas. A girl baby. An unusually pretty baby, with a wet, black mat of hair and a studious expression. Senator Simon Addams noticed right away that she didn't have the red squally look of most newborns. She didn't look like a peeled, boiled rabbit" (Chapter 1, pg. 13-14.)

"It was Ruth Thomas's firm position that she belonged nowhere but on Fort Niles Island. This was the position she took with her mother: she was...