“Dear friend now in the dusty clockless hours of the town when the streets lie black and steaming in the wake of the watertrucks and now when the drunk and the homeless have washed up in the lee of walls in alleys or abandoned lots and cats go forth highshouldered and lean in the grim perimeters about, now in these sootblacked brick or cobbled corridors where lightwire shadows make a gothic harp of cellar doors no soul shall walk save you.”

“On the day of the dead, when the year too dies,Must the youngest open the oldest hillsThrough the door of the birds, where the breeze breaks.There fire shall fly from the raven boy,And the silver eyes that see the wind,And the light shall have the harp of gold.By the pleasant lake the Sleepers lie,On Cadfan’s Way where the kestrels call;Though grim from the Grey King shadows fall,Yet singing the golden harp shall guideTo break their sleep and bid them ride.When light from the lost land shall return,Six Sleepers shall ride, six Signs shall burn,And where the midsummer tree grows tallBy Pendragon’s sword the Dark shall fall.Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu,ac y mae’r arglwyddes yn dod.”

“‎Now the deer moved through snow, snow that blew sideways, frosting the perfectly upright walls of Detroit's dead and monumental heart, vast black tines of brick reaching up to vanish in the white sky.They made a lot of nature shows there.”

“Let this be the hour when we draw swords together. Fell deeds awake. Now for wrath, now for ruin, and the red dawn. Forth, Eorlingas!”

“You must now go home, where everything -- you can be quite sure -- will be falser than here....You must go now. You'll leave by the right, through the alley....”

“I let myself into the cellar, locked the door behind me. The cellar was cold. I found the whisky, let myself out of the cellar and locked it, turned all the lights out, gave Mrs McSpadden the bottle, accepted a belated new-year kiss from her, then made my way out through the kitchen and the corridor and the crowded hall where the music sounded loud and people were laughing, and out through the now almost empty entrance hall and down the steps of the castle and down the driveway and down to Gallanach, where I walked along the esplanade - occasionally having to wave to say 'Happy New Year' to various people I didn't know - until I got to the old railway pier and then the harbour, where I sat on the quayside, legs dangling, drinking my whisky and watching a couple of swans glide on black, still water, to the distant sound of highland jigs coming from the Steam Packet Hotel, and singing and happy-new-year shouts echoing in the streets of the town, and the occasional sniff as my nose watered in sympathy with my eyes.”