- Harry Melville Quincey: You know Lettie, when you look up at the stars, you feel awfully small. Our problems seem so petty against all that space on space out there. We are mere drops of nothing compared to a sun that has a hundred million miles for a backyard. So why do we torture ourselves trying to discover what's good and what's evil? What's right and what's wrong? So unimportant.
- Lettie Quincey: Yes, Harry. We understand each other.
- Lettie Quincey: Harry's older than you, and he's set in his ways. The ordinary modern world will ruin him! You may not like the new Harry he becomes. His world is inside him, and it's rare and beautiful and lonely. And you'll spoil it. You'll spoil it!
- Hester Quincey: Nobody cares for me. All the time I put in, planning the meals and doing the housework, while you just sit among those horrible plants and read poetry!
- Ben: Old Sure Death, I call it. It's my own mixture. One pinch, and you'll wake up being measured for a harp.