“In the wicked outside world, my brother told me, there were sins the church didn't know enough to forbid. I couldn't wait.”

“Churches in the outside world, my brother told me, were just the local stores that sold people lies made up in the distant factories of giant religions.”

“In the outside world, my brother told me, people were as reckless as animals and fornicated with strangers on the street.”

“If the sins of the flesh ever got old I didn't ever want enough years on me to know it.”

“Those were the words I thought were going to put everything back together again: but they didn't. I was hurt, angry and lost. I couldn't look at my husband without feeling pain. I didn't want him to touch me, or hold me, or comfort me. It was gone. He stood there, waiting for me to say something, anything that would let him know we still had a chance.”

“She said this world was a hole of darkness, of black light and evil and loss. But if that were true, there would never have been any bright light in our lives. My mother would never have existed, my brother would never have been such a fine man, Andres would not be waiting for me somewhere, though I didn't know where.”