“The following evening as they rode up onto the western rim they lost one of the mules. It went skittering off down the canyon wall with the contents of the panniers exploding soundlessly in the hot dry air and it fell through sunlight and through shade, turning in that lonely void until it fell from sight into a sink of cold blue space that absolved it forever of memory in the mind of any living thing that was.”

“The blast of hot air lifted Tazeem from his feet and threw him onto his back in the road. He blinked up into the night sky; raindrops glowed orange as they fell towards the earth.”

“The cat jumped out of Willie’s arms and bounded up the stanze.The gallery fell into a hush as the cat crawled through Moses and the Prophets and the reign of David and up through the Old Testament entirely, fixing its claws on the slaying of the Holy Innocents and stopping to consider how far it wished to travel into the Gospels. The Russian priest began to scream again.A spirit-minded guard, interpreting the cat’s movements as an evil sign, fell on his knees and asked forgiveness for his many sins of the flesh.A policeman called to the cat to jump down but the cat seemed content to remain with the dying Innocents.Willie whistled sharply then. The cat turned, hesitated, then leaped down and skittered out of the gallery.Everyone turned to Willie, who stood quite still, holding his arms as if he were still cradling the cat.“Cats—men,” he said in a faraway voice, “need things to hang on. Otherwise, wouldn’t everything fall away?”The Italian word for insane rippled through the gallery.”

“They read the long afternoon through, while the cold November rain fell from the sky upon the quiet house.”

“The worst, the very worst requirement of friendship, in Eve Dallas's opinion, was sitting through an entire evening of childbirth classes.What went on there--the sights, the sounds, the assault on all the senses--turned the blood cold.”

“Kaladin screamed, reaching the end of the bridge. Finding a tiny surge of strength somewhere, he raised his spear and threw himself off the end of the wooden platform, launching into the air above the cavernous void. Bridgemen cried out in dismay. Syl zipped about him with worry. Parshendi looked up with amazement as a lone bridgeman sailed through the air toward them. His drained, worn-out body barely had any strength left. In that moment of crystallized time, he looked down on his enemies. Parshendi with their marbled red and black skin. Soldiers raising finely crafted weapons, as if to cut him from the sky. Strangers, oddities in carapace breastplates and skullcaps. Many of them wearing beards. Beards woven with glowing gemstones. Kaladin breathed in. Like the power of salvation itself—like rays of sunlight from the eyes of the Almighty—Stormlight exploded from those gemstones. It streamed through the air, pulled in visible streams, like glowing columns of luminescent smoke. Twisting and turning and spiraling like tiny funnel clouds until they slammed into him. And the storm came to life again.”