“Michael had once read to her how God had cast a man and woman out of paradise. Yet, for all their human faults and failures. God had shown them the way back in.”

“Ewan had shown her ways for a man to take a woman that she wouldn't have thought possible. But never once had he hurt her.Nay, her bear was ever tender.”

“What a failure her life had been. Would she have lied to God if she’d had more faith, been more righteous? How could she possibly have a son at her age? And yet, if she had believed all along . . .”

“She loved him because he had brought her back to life. She had been like a caterpillar in a cocoon, and he had drawn her out and shown her that she was a butterfly.”

“As a little girl she had liked looking at her palms against the light, the red peeking through her closed fingers. Once she had shown it to her father and he had kissed her fingertips, pretending to eat them.”

“He had never told her just what he thought of the value of prayer and all the rest of the self-deluding mumbo jumbo with which otherwise rational people tried to humanize the cosmos. Man had created God in his own image, not the other way around.”