“Bright lamplight bounced off golden varnished wood. The suddenly vivid colors of scarves, hats, hair and faces after the gray-green gloom they’d been immersed in all morning dazzled them. The solid warmth of the coal-fired range, dry and hot, pressed against them from the front as the lingering damp embedded in their backs brought forth a final, convulsive shiver. The sights and smells of rich food and aromatic coffee hit them, no longer just a hope in their hollow stomachs. This made them all as if drunk with good fortune and delighted them with sheer, physical pleasure.”

“My homeland has many palm-treesand the thrush-song fills its air;no bird here can sing as wellas the birds sing over there.We have fields more full of flowersand a starrier sky above,we have woods more full of lifeand a life more full of love.Lonely night-time meditationsplease me more when I am there;my homeland has many palm-treesand the thrush-song fills its air.Such delights as my land offersAre not found here nor elsewhere;lonely night-time meditationsplease me more when I am there;My homeland has many palm-treesand the thrush-song fills its air.Don’t allow me, God, to diewithout getting back to whereI belong, without enjoyingthe delights found only there,without seeing all those palm-trees,hearing thrush-songs fill the air.”

“Don't cry my sonDon't cry, because life is a redeemed fightLife is a fight that will demean the weak personAnd will always exalt the strong ones”

“Brightly woven, Diar,' Aileron said. And then dazzled them all with the warmth of his smile.”

“A moment later,the gunshot startled them all, well, all of them except Chad Kinkaid, who fired it. The dogs that had followed him in had still been barking around his horse's feet. The shot hit the dirt near them and sent them hightailing it elsewhere.Amanda had squealed in surprise,one hand had flown to her chest and was still there. "Was that really necessary?" she asked derisively.Chad Kinkaid pulled his hat back down over his forehead,gathered his reins in preparation of riding off, and with a lazy smile,said, "No,ma'am. It was a pleasure though.”

“The living take a part of the dead with them, carrying them around in their minds, like a song that lingers after the music has been turned off.”

“Black absorbs all color, accepts them, takes them into it and let them define it. Gray isn't anything but itself. It absorbs nothing but itself.”