“Winkler's breath plumed up onto his glasses. The entire valley was enveloped in a huge, illuminated stillness. Above him the clouds had pulled away and the sky burned with stars. The meadow smolder...”

“Did time move forward, through people, or did people move through it, like clouds across the sky?”

“The stars were so many and so white they looked like chips of ice, hammered through the fabric of the sky.”

“And the skies: in one day the sky could travel from green at dawn to a noon-time blue so severe it was almost black to hot silver in the afternoon to roiling burgundy at sunset. Just before night i...”

“But who can remember pain, once its over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“I know what you are learning to endure. There is nothing to be done. Make sure nothing is wasted. Take notes. Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In lif...”

“My mind, I know, I can prove, hovers on hummingbird wings. It hovers and it churns. And when it's operating at full thrust, the churning does not stop. The machines do not rest, the systems rarely ...”