“I’ve heard the Prior here talk about Gabriel,’ said Richard serenely. ‘He seemed at times to be confusing him with the Pope.”

“Wei cleared his throat and said, “Have you heard the saying `The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher’? It seems I’ve been the pitcher most of my life. I’ve forgotten how to be fluid. It feels as if I’m finally learning now,” he said.”

“He lay far across the room from her, on a winter island separated by an empty sea. She talked to him for what seemed a long while and she talked about this and she talked about that and it was only words, like the words he had heard once in a nursery at a friend’s house, a two-year-old child building word patters, like jargon, making pretty sounds in the air.”

“'Shotgun!' he bellowed, startling them as he scrambled to the front, passenger-side door.Camael looked at him, an expression of confusion on his goateed face. 'What did you Say?''I said shotgun,' Gabriel [the dog] explained. 'It's what you're supposed to say when you want to ride in the front seat.'Aaron could not help but laugh. No matter how many conversations he had had with the animal, Gabriel's increased intelligence still managed to surprise him.”

“He seemed to think that spanking solved problems instead of taking the time to talk about them.”

“But he was not her Gabriel. Her Gabriel was dead. Gone. Leaving behind only vestiges of him in the body of a harsh and tortured clone. Gabriel had almost broken Julia’s heart once. She was determined she would not let him break her heart for the second time.”