Elizabeth Knox

“Why do you come here?""I promised.""I release you from your promise!""It wasn't you I promised," the angel said quietly.”

“So, did you need to hear that? Did you really need to know more?' Xas asked.'Yes. It's always better to know more.''God help you,' Xas said with feeling.”

“The thought of flight has melted me, I am less solid than liquid, then I'm going up and going invisible like steam.”

“Of course, any map of the Place would be shocking to anyone with any understanding of geography. As you can see, this is a map of no earthly geography." -”

“Happiness had never been like this before. Now it came like sun showers, the sun and the rain together. Happiness was happier than it had been - sharp, piercing, and snatched, like a breath while swimming in surf.”

“I have no particular plan in life - and that's something I rather like. Most things that people do seem to me to be rather dull and silly. In my ideal life I'd be left alone to read”

“She said to him, ‘You might melt.’ And he said, “If I melt, you can make me again.”

“You fainted and I caught you. It was the first time I'd supported a human. You had such heavy bones. I put myself between you and gravity. Impossible.”

“Xas sighed. "But I don't want to talk about God. Why do I? Sometimes I feel God is all over me like a pollen and I go about pollinating things with God."Sobran opened his eyes and Xas smiled at him. Soban said, "I did think that you talked about God to persuade me you weren't evil. But I've decided that, for you, everything is somehow to the glory of God, whether you like it or not.""I feel that, yes. My imagination was first formed in God's glory. But I think God didn't make the world, so I think my feelings are mistaken."This was the heresy for which Xas was thrown out of Heaven. Sobran was happy it had finally appeared. It was like a clearing. Sobran could almost see this clearing - a silent, sunny, green space into which not a thing was falling, not even the call of a cuckoo. Xas thought the world was like this, an empty clearing into which God had wandered.”

“Imagine a very long time passing - and I find my way out, following someone who already knows how to leave Hell. And God says to me on Earth for the first time, "Xas!" in a tone of discovery, as if I'm a misplaced pair of spectacles or a stray dog. And he puts it to me that he wants me in Heaven. But Lucifer has doubled back - it was him I followed - to find me, where I am, in a forest, smitten, because the Lord has noticed me, and I'm overcome, as hopeless as your dog Josie whom you got rid of because she loved me.' Xas glared at Sobran. Then he drew a breath - all had been said on only three. He went on: 'Lucifer says to God the He can't have me. And at this I sit up and tell Lucifer that I didn't even think he knew my name, then say to God no thank you - very insolent this - and that Hell is endurable so long as the books keep appearing.”