A Sequence Of Lives:
Two moons ago, when it came time to select his assistant, Granduncle had weighed Haaganors well-known handicap against even better-known powers, then decided in his favor. Yet when a messenger canoed across to Rekwoi, Haaganors had refused, he said "no." A few days later, only after the urgings of his family and neighbors, did he change his mind and accept.

In arriving at this fateful decision, he had arrived at another crossroads in his stormy young life. Along with the task at hand, he was accepting the possible creation of a new level of energy - an energy which could mushroom, radiate outwards, and change forever not only his own, but a sequence of lives. I:175

Grand Uncle To Haaganor:
After stoking the embers with a poker, Grand Uncle sat down. He crossed his bony legs, gazed into the fire. Then turning, he stared into Haaganor's shadowed face and intoned solemnly: "From the beginning, we have always done it this way. This is why I am with you, so that you will know how to do everything." I:179

On Psyhic Communication:
Quickly Alice recounted what had happened. Before dawn that morning, wailing and weeping, Pegah had awakened her family with the announcement that Robert Spott had been killed in France. She knew this, she had received word of it. As her sleepy family assembled, dumbfounded by such news, Pegah said she no longer cared to live. She would gather up Robert's things, the things he had left in her care - his sacred stone, the special steatite dishes for the salmon ceremony, the many dance costumes, the boys bow and arrow Captain Spott had given him. She would load these treasures into her carrying basket, go down to the sandbar, start a fire there, and burn them up, until nothing was left. Then she would throw herself into the treacherous currents there. It was at that moment, just as old Pegah had started collecting her sons possessions, that Alice had sent Ed into Requa to get Mrs. Roberts. II:124

The Fire Went Out:
"Too bad Whiteman find this place. He never would have, if old woman who lived right over there hadn't let fire go out. She made a fog over fire. Hide this place. For long time no one found us. Oh, too bad."
II:143, Old Indian Woman to Ruth Roberts

Jedediah Smith:
Only twenty-seven years old,Jedediah Smith was not your typical rough-and-tumble, burly-and-bearded Mountain Man of popular history. He had a lean tall figure, clean-shaven face, thin aquiline features and formal humorless manner. He neither drank nor smoked, always carried a Bible along with his journal, and was called Captain Smith, or Mr. Smith by his men. Yet this young fur trapper, who had just led them on an epically long journey, was already a proven leader of men, competent businessman, and questing explorer. II:143

A Goodbye to Ruth Roberts:
A year after her death, in a fourteen-page "U.C. Berkeley Memorial Tribute to Ruth Roberts," Arnold Piling wrote, "Like the great departed singers and dancers of the Yurok and Hupa ceremonies, each was unique. Each had his own style. The old Yurok cry in memory of a great performer."

Huddling together on that cold Crescent City sidewalk, the five of us waved to Harry as he drove off, south on H Street. For one more block we could see, poking above the bed of his pickup, the feathery green boughs he had picked fresh that morning, from Klamath River redwoods growing nearby. When he arrived at the family cemetery in Napa, as Ruth had requested, he would place them on her headstone. II:320