“I watched as she stretched over the board to flick off a fallen leaf. Underneath her thin cotton shell, I saw how fragile the bones in her back were, far too sliver-prone, far too light to support a pair of wings.”

“In a flash of wonderment she saw firm, continuous ground under her feet, stretching from back then to right now and on and on as far as her eyes could take her.”

“I had fallen too far. I was in love with Rush Finlay.”

“But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her, barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my windowin one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor.She will look in at me with her thin arms extended,offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.”

“She takes after her father.""Uh, I guess," I said, unsure how to respond. Bud's reputation was too far down the toilet for it to be a compliment.”

“With her, too, I danced more easily now, in a freer and more sprightly fashion, even though not so buoyantly and more self-consciously than with the other. Hermine had me lead, adapting herself as softly and lightly as the leaf of a flower, and with her, too, I now experienced all these delights that now advanced and now took wing. She, too, now exhaled the perfume of woman and love, and her dancing, too, sang with intimate tenderness the lovely and enchanting song of sex.”