“He bowed at the dark, straightened, tossed his hat over his shoulder, and, carrying the muleta in his left hand and the sword in his right, walked out toward the bull.”

“He noticed that Ivan swayed as he walked and that his right shoulder was lower than his left. He had never noticed it before.”

“Teddy risked a look backward and nodded as he handed Henry his hat. The two men shook hands and then walked past each other Teddy moving in the direction of Henry's room and Henry the hat pulled down over his face toward the Cutting carriage that was waiting by the curb.”

“It had ceased raining in the night and he walked out on the road and called for the dog. He called and called. Standing in that inexplicable darkness. Where there was no sound anywhere save only the wind. After a while he sat in the road. He took off his hat and placed it on the tarmac before him and he bowed his head and held his face in his hands and wept. He sat there for a long time and after a while the east did gray and after a while the right and godmade sun did rise, once again, for all and without distinction.”

“Steadying herself with both hands on the table, she managed an awkward bow....'Your Highness,' she stammered, head lowered...The prince flinched and cast a glance over his shoulder before hunching toward her. 'Maybe, um...' - he pulled his fingers across his lips - 'on the Highness stuff?”

“Once the soul has left the body it had to walk across a bridge as narrow as a knife edge, with paradise on the right and, on the left, a series of circles that lead down into the darkness inside the earth. Before crossing the bridge, each person had to place all his virtues in his right hand and all his sins in his left, and the imbalance between the two meant that the person always fell towards the side to which his actions on Earth had inclined him.”