“My father had a dark glimmer in his eye as he moved behind her. “Old?” He spoke in a low voice as he began to rub her shoulders again. “Woman, I have a mind to prove you wrong.”
She smiled a wry smile. “Sir, I have a mind to let you.””

“As Logan walked towards her, he smiled as if reading her mind and opened his arms.”

“He turned to face her again, his late-pretty composure crumbling. "But you're…"

"Pretty? Think again." She smiled. "I'm Tally Youngbood. My mind is very ugly. And I'm taking your car.”

“It's a shame you know," he called over his shoulder.
"What's a shame?" Duncan asked.
"That I didn't capture her first."
Duncan smiled. "Nay, Edmond, it was a blessing. God's truth, I would have taken her from you.”

“He saw the girl watching him and he smiled at her. It was an old smile that he had been using for fifty years, ever since he first smiled…”

“She rubbed her eyes, and after a long study of his face, she spoke
"Is it really you?"
Is it from your cheek, she thought, that I took the seed?
The man nodded.
His heart wobbled and he held tighter to the branches.
It is.”

“He was looking at her from behind the smiling that wasn't smiling but was something you were not supposed to see beyond.”

“"You look like a girl with a secret," Matt said. "I think it must be the smile."
She moved closer to him, which was very close, and lowered her voice. "Can you keep a secret?"
Matt smiled with one side of his mouth to show that he knew what was coming. She said it anyway. "So can I."”

“Unless in fact he had a very dim memory of her and the photograph had blown on the tiny little ember of his connection with his granny, like a faint orange glow in a heap of soft grey ash, and for a moment he really could remember when he had sat on his granny’s lap and smiled at her and patted her wrinkly old face — his mother said he smiled at her and she was really pleased.”

“I sought her in the grayness and she wasn’t there, she was dead and she wasn’t there, she wouldn’t be there ever again and I could never find comfort in her again. Ellen, beloved, you are dead and your voice is in my mind and only in my mind.”