“The house was full of the sound of the gale. It was a winter northeaster, furious with wind and snow, and driving down against us from the dark and desolate North Atlantic and a thousand miles of whitecaps and slavering foam.”

“Winter lay among the Outer Hebrides. Day was a sullen glimmer between two darknesses, often smothered in snow. When it did not fling itself upon the rocks and burst in freezing spume, the North Atlantic rolled in heavy and gnawing. There was no real horizon; leaden waves met leaden sky and misty leaden light hid the seam.”

“It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.”

“If we can stand up
When all else falls down,
We'll last through the winter.
We'll last through the storms.
We'll last through the north winds
That bring down the ice and snow.
We'll last through the long nights
Till the green field's growing again.
Growing again.”

“The witchlight made his skin paler, his eyes more intently blue. They were the color of the water in the North Atlantic, where the ice drifted on its blue-black surface like the snow clinging to the dark glass pane of a window.”

“Winter solitude-
in a world of one colour
the sound of the wind.”

“Some love to roam o’er the dark sea’s foam,
Where the shrill winds whistle free.”

“By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast — a cold wind.”

“Life and summer are fleeting,’ sang the bird. ‘Snow and dark, and the winter comes. Nothing remains the same.”

“Grey-eyed Athene sent them a favourable gale, a fresh West Wind, singing over the wine-dark sea.”