"Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I've come to learn, is women."

Entry, the first; Page 1

"New Orleans, you should know, was a city tailored to my taste for the excessive, exotic fringes of life, a world of port of such extravagance in 1829 when I arrived from southern Illinois-a newly freed bondman, my papers in an old portmanteau, a gift from my master in Makanda-that I dropped my bags and a shot of recognition shot up my spine to my throat, rolling off my tongue in a whispered, 'Here, Rutherford is home.'"

Entry, the first; Page 1-2

"Did I love Isadora? Really, I couldn't say. I'd always felt people fell in love as they might fall into a hole; it was something I thought a smart man avoided."

Entry, the first; Page 7

"'The sea does things to your head...