“They live together in that house, Joel Gustafson and his father. And both of them dream, in their different ways, about Joel’s mum, Jenny, who simply vanished one day. Packed a suitcase and went away.”
“My life got thrown into a blender and I’m left with something I don’t recognize. On top of that, I’m suddenly somebody’s pops and I wish I had my pops.”
“His father was mean with the lamps and only kept one up in front for the road ahead, so Meshak hated being out on the highway at night. He was afraid of the dark. It was not just the spirit world which frightened him, but the real world of robbers and highwaymen, especially near the forest.”
″‘When you told me the first time that Valentine was your father, I didn’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Not just because I didn’t want it to be true, but because you weren’t anything like him. But you are. You are.‘”
“When she was a baby, I tried to talk to Laleh in Farsi too. But I never really got the hang of it, and Mom’s friends kept correcting me, so after a while I kind of gave up. After that, me and Dad talked to Laleh exclusively in English. That left the two of us in the dark whenever we were at gatherings with Mom’s friends. That was the only time Dad and I were on the same team.”
“Simon felt the duke’s rejection in his very bones, felt a peculiar kind of pain enter his body and creep around his heart. And, as hatred flooded his body and poured from his eyes, he made a solemn vow. If he couldn’t be the son his father wanted, then by God, he’d be the exact opposite…”
“He wanted to be friends with his father and feel the same closeness there had been between his father and Jamie. Jamie would have been a big man. He had gone on the boat that last summer, and Mark had listened enviously as Jamie and his father discussed fishing and boating problems in man-to-man fashion.”
“Mark was sure he’d never know such warm companionship with his father. Jamie had got it all. He wondered what would have happened if Jamie had asked for Ben.”
“His father’s name was also Tiuri and he was known as Tiuri the Valiant. Was he lying awake now, thinking about his son? Tiuri hoped he would become as worthy a knight as his father.”
“Father Spook was sitting in a chair with his eyes closed and cotton wool on his ears, ‘Perhaps Daddy has carache,’ Little Spook` whispered to his friend. Then Mother Spook saw them. She gave each boy a big hug. ‘Come over here,’ she said. ‘I have something to show you.”
“Too much time has passed for the father to ask his son how he’s doing, too much time for the son to be able to explain. The distance between them is too great now.”
“Well,” replied I, “I hope you’ll be kind to the boy, Mr. Heathcliff, or you’ll not keep him long; and he’s all you have akin in the wide world, that you will ever know—remember.”
If the dead villain could rise from his grave to abuse me for his offspring’s wrongs, I should have the fun of seeing the said offspring fight him back again, indignant that he should dare to rail at the one friend he has in the world!”