"Well, you're young. You know a whole lot you won't know later on."
Christie feeds Morag stories about a made-up Scottish ancestry in order to instill confidence and pride in the angry orphan. When she begins arguing with him about her decisions and citing her certainty about her destiny, he responds with this quote. He understands that one day she'll learn that he made up all these stories. He can only hope that she understands that he was trying to help.
"They remain shadows. Two sepia shadows on an old snapshot, two barely moving shadows in my head, shadows whose few remaining words and acts I have invented. Perhaps I only want their forgiveness for having forgotten them. I remember their deaths, but not their lives. Yet they're inside me, flowing unknown in my blood and moving unrecognized in my skull."
Young Morag is shaped by Christie's stories about her ancestors, Piper and Morag Gunn. To her, they are her destiny. Whatever their lives were defined by, she feels compelled to embrace as her destiny as well. As an adult, Morag knows they were inventions of Christie's imagination, but she still cannot help trusting the influence of these two legendary figures in her mind. In the end it's really Christie's influence she really owes.
"The waters flowed from north to south, and the current was visible, but now a south wind was blowing, ruffling the water in the opposite direction so that the river, as so often here, seemed to be flowing both ways."
Morag is an observant woman who notes the contradiction of the river's direction when the wind blows. This passage symbolically represents Morag's maturity. She's beginning to note the contradictory and paradoxical nature of life. Whereas her youth was characterized by one-sided opinions and resolute motivations, now she has learned to balance an opinion in both hands and to maintain them in tension.
"I used to think words could do anything. Magic. Sorcery. Even miracle. But no, only occasionally.
Morag feels her writing from deep within. She can't imagine not writing. Throughout her life, her perspective on the meaning of this drive shifts, but she always maintains her love for the craft. While she may not always see the magic of her words, she always seeks out opportunities for magic in her experiences. She's the kind of person driven by curiosity and excellence.
