“For EARTH which is an intelligence hath a voice and a propensity to speak in all her parts.”

“While he gave Ella enormous credit for summing the situation so succinctly, part of him was still waiting for her to crumple on the floor in a heap. “Yes it does. But please, don’t be frightened–”“Oh pack it in,” she snapped, re-lacing the top of her bodice. “You’re not marrying a wilting sunflower you know.”

“We knew the massive amount of media attention the Elizabeth Smart case had generated was in part because the Smarts were an affluent, well-connected Caucasian family. However, kidnapping crosses all boundaries and all children deserve the same resources.”

“I am shot with wounds which have eyes that see a world all sorrow, always to be, panoramic and unhealable, and mouths that hang unspeakable in the sky of blood.”

“No, my advocates, my angels with sadist eyes, this is the beginning of my life, or the end. So I lean affirmation across the cafe table, and surrender my fifty years away with an easy smile. But the surety of my love is not dismayed by any eventuality which prudence or pity can conjure up, and in the end all that we can do is to sit at the table over which our hands cross, listening to tunes from the wurlitzer, with love huge and simple between us, and nothing more to be said.”

“Yesterday from my office window I saw a crippled girl negotiating her way across the street, her shoulders squarely braced. At each jerky movement her hair flew back like an annunciatory angel, and I saw she was the only dancer on the street.”

“How can I be kind? How can I find bird-relief in the nest-building of day-to-day? Necessity supplies no velvet wing with which to escape. I am indeed and mortally pierced with the seeds of love.”