“How were you able to see at once: a glass and an apple, a statue and a rifle, a woman and a cage? When you started to collect all you saw, you found yourself unable to sketch even a passing image. What was missing was a thread and perhaps more glass so that these would all coalesce in an enchanting image. You then knew that the glass was not a glass, nor the apple and apple, or the statue. . . You had to search for their secrets. Sleeping in the well of your eyes, in the light of the absent mirror, in the ray glistening on the side of your face.”

“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.”

“Lea--when a man climbs a glass mountain, it's not usually for the damn golden apple. It's for the person he gives the apple to.”

“And since you know you cannot see yourself,so well as by reflection, I, your glass,will modestly discover to yourself,that of yourself which you yet know not of.”

“She remembered how it had felt and tasted, that slowly descending depression, like a thick glass jar that closed around you, sucking away the air you needed to breathe, creating a barrier between you and the world. The hell of it was that she'd been able to see all that she was missing, but when she'd reached out, all she'd touched was cold, hard glass.”

“Many days later another caravan was passing and a man saw something on top of the highest dune there. And when they went up to see, they found Outka, Mimouna and Aicha; they were still there, lying the same way as when they had gone to sleep. And all three of the glasses,' he held up his own little tea glass, 'were full of sand. That was how they had their tea in the Sahara.”