“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”

“Time had been something we feared, but with the babies the things that held time together - the years, the months, the weeks, the days - melted and flowed toward the future.”

“Or maybe that wasn't the time it snowed. Maybe it was the time we slept in the truck and I rolled over on the bunnies and flattened them. It doesn't matter. What's important for me to remember now is that early the next morning the snow was melted off the windshield and the daylight woke me up. A mist covered everything and, with the sunshine, was beginning to grow sharp and strange. The bunnies weren't a problem yet, or they'd already been a problem and were already forgotten, and there was nothing on my mind. I felt the beauty of the morning. I could understand how a drowning man might suddenly feel a deep thirst being quenched. Or how a slave might become a friend to his master.”

“before the gate --my walking stick's made a riverof melting snow”

“Over the course of weeks, taking great care never to revel her inward state of flux, Percy had evaluated her situation, observing her feelings from all angles before finally reaching the conclusion that she was, quite clearly, several shades of crazy.”

“The water was pure and cold and came out of the Apennines tasting like snow melted in the hands of a pretty girl.”