You’ll understand when you’re older, Orla, that “givin’ a hard time” to a young person is all to a purpose. With every word you speak, every gesture, every impulse you give in to without reflection, you’re building your character – and at the end of your life, your character is all you have to show for yourself.

We do not thieve the peckers of men who’ve spurned us and squirrel them away in glass jars.

I’d try eBay, if I were you,” Harry replies. “You might even get more than you paid for it.” Plenty of fools all over the planet willing to pay good money for allegedly haunted bric-a-brac.

For all their reputation for chattiness and storytelling, the Irish I knew were so skillful with words there was sometimes no need for them at all.

You'll understand when you're older, Orla, that "givin' a hard time" to a young person is all to a purpose. With every word you speak, every gesture, every impulse you give in to without reflection, you're building your character - and at the end of your life, your character is all you have to show for yourself.

Sometimes the people who’ve owned the books in this shop leave little clues between the pages, and not just love notes or pressed flowers. You might come upon an unused Amtrak ticket tucked between the pages of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes or a sprinkling of crumbs along the gutter inside The Complete Engravings, Etchings, and Drypoints of Albrecht Dürer. Makes you wonder what kind of person noshes on a salami sandwich over The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.