To Ejinar that cannonball was a monster with a will of its own. It showed him what war was: not a battery that exploded and sent matchstick soldiers fleeing, but a dragon that breathed hot fire on his naked heart.

We swore that we’d die with our boots on. But then, that’s what you do when you drown.

No, Captain Madsen, you don’t regret having had a child simply because you lose it. Having a child isn’t a deal you strike with life. As I said: a child is a gift. And what remains after a child is gone is the memory of the years it was allowed to live. Not its death.

There was plenty for the eye to feast on, but nothing for the soul. He had a hunger for something that no sky could satisfy. Somewhere on the planet there had to be a different kind of light.

We don’t sail because the sea is there. We sail because there’s a harbour. We don’t start by heading for distant shores. We seek protection first.

War was like sailing. You could learn about clouds, wind direction, and currents, but the sea remained forever unpredictable. All you could do was adapt to it and try to return home alive.

No, he hadn’t known anything about children, but now he’d learned something: a child’s mind is open to everything.

Perhaps the greatest thing you can achieve is to love without demanding anything in return.

But that’s how it is on a sailing ship, and in this respect its journey parallels that of life: simply knowing where you want to go isn’t enough, because life is a windblown voyage, consisting mainly of the detours imposed by alternating calm and storm.

He felt Miss Kristina’s presence like something poisonous and something infinitely sweet mixing together in his blood. Inside him, a lack of willpower and a colossal tension battled it out. He felt both weak and furious at the same time. He went around with his fists clenched, ready to fight, yet what he wanted most of all was to hold and be held.