“She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of entertaiment in listening to the larks singing far and near; and enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine; and watching her, my pet, and my delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom, as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creautre, and an angel in those those days. It is a pity she could not stay content.”

“No one could see her objectively anyway. Even those who saw her for the first time, before she had opened her mouth to sing. Found her radiant, as if her talent could not be contained in her voice and so poured like light though her skin. Then all that could be seen was the weight and the gloss of her hair and the pale pink of her cheeks and her beautiful hands.”

“She is like the morning," he said. "With that golden hair, those blue eyes, and that fresh bloom on her cheek, she is like the summer morning. The birds here will mistake her for it. We will not call such a lovely young creature as that, who is a joy to all mankind, an orphan. She is the child of the universe.”

“The tear stayed in her eye, never falling down her cheek, and then the left side of her mouth crept up into a half-smile. This was my mom. She would come home to us again. -If I Know It's Coming”

“Now she took the pills and, just before she closed her eyes, she summoned Lockie and his smile, and then the dreams would come.In her dream her golden boy tries again and again and again to stand up on the boogie board until he manages to remain upright for at least a minute. In her dream Sarah can feel the tears on her cheeks. Her golden boy was lost and she was too. She tried to dream that they found each other again but she couldn’t control her dreams any more than she could control her nightmares.”

“She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear, “Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.”And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek.”