"There was just one of them; and the thing, as far as he could make it out through the sweat in his eyes and its flamelike flickering, was not even, maybe, human." Chapter 1, pg. 2

"To the north, beginning with the last fenced paddock, lay swamp country...The land to the south was also unknown. Settlement up here proceeded in frog-leaps from one little coastal place to the next. Between lay tracts of country than no white man had ever entered. It was disturbing, that: to have unknown country behind you as well as in front." Chapter 1, pg. 8

"So he began his life among them, doing what he had always done. It was all he knew. Since he had somehow found his way into the world, his object, like any other creature's, was to stay in it and by any means he could." Chapter 2, pg. 21

"For her, too, he...