"The four billion life forms which have existed on this planet, three billion, nine hundred and sixty million are now extinct. . . It really does seem unreasonable to suppose that Homo sapiens should be exempt. Our species will have been one of the shortest lived of all, a mere blink, you may say, in the eye of time." Book One, Chap. 1, pp. 13-14

"It is one of the moments from my boyhood which has remained with me, an evening of pure joy, unshadowed, untainted by guilt or satiety or regret, immortalized for me in that image of Xan balanced against the sunset, of his flaming hair, of the pale petals of roses floating downstream under the bridge until they were lost to sight." Book One, Chap. 2, p. 22

"At heart I am only touched by the thought of Woolcombe; the imagined smell of its musty deserted rooms, the rotting panels...