“The nature of the world is to be calm, and enhance and support life, and evil is an absence of the inclination of matter to be at peace.”

“For who was in thrall to whom, really? And could it ever be known? Each agent working in collusion and antagonism - like the cold and the sun alike creating a deadly spear of ice... Who is in thral...”

“Remember to breathe. It is after all, the secret of life.”

“Approval is overrated...Approval and disapproval alike satisfy those who deliver it more than those who receive it. I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without.”

“But she woke up just then, and in the moonlight covered herself with a blanket. She smiled at him drowsily and called him "Yero, my hero," and that melted his heart.”

“The world was floods above and fire below”

“Well, I learned to cook. At my age," she told him. "What's next? Art therapy? Anyway, I've had quite a time of it this summer, and who knows what eases down on any road. Come, Rain. A quick goodbye...”

“Well, I learned to cook. At my age," she told him. "What's next? Art therapy? Anyway, I've had quite a time of it this summer, and who knows what eases down on any road. Come, Rain. A quick goodbye...”

“Though there had yet to be a victor in this great war that had begun almost three years ago, Maurice had written to her that they had, all of them, on all sides, lost their freedom. Freedom to thin...”

“Then I thought, boy, isn't that just typical? You wait and wait and wait for something, and then when it happens, you feel sad.”

“I'm living under water. Everything seems slow and far away. I know there's a world up there, a sunlit quick world where time runs like dry sand through an hourglass, but down here, where I am, air ...”