“This is my child, he said. I wash a dead man's brains out of his hair. That is my job.”

“He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.”

“Hard weather, says the old man. So let it be. Wrap me in the weathers of the earth, I will be hard and hard. My face will wash rain like the stones.”

“The judge placed his hands on the ground. He looked at his inquisitor. This is my claim, he said. And yet everywhere upon it are pockets of autonomous life. Autonomous. In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon it save by my dispensation.”

“A goodlookin horse is like a goodlookin woman, he said. They're always more trouble than what they're worth. What a man needs is just one that will get the job done.”

“Whatever exists, he said. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.He looked about at the dark forest in which they were bivouacked. He nodded toward the specimens he'd collected. These anonymous creatures, he said, may seem little or nothing in the world. Yet the smallest crumb can devour us. Any smallest thing beneath yon rock out of men's knowing. Only nature can enslave man and only when the existence of each last entity is routed out and made to stand naked before him will he be properly suzerain of the earth.”

“Lost ye way in the dark, said the old man. He stirred the fire, standing slender tusks of bone up out of the ashes.The kid didn’t answer.The old man swung his head back and forth. The way of the transgressor is hard. God made this world, but he didnt make it to suit everbody, did he?I don’t believe he much had me in mind.”