“Soon it began to drizzle for the second time that night. The drops grew heavier and became visible in the headlights of the cars. It was said by some of the police on the scene that God was crying for the girl in the garden. To others, it was only rain.”

“It began to drizzle rain and he turned on the windshield wipers; they made a great clatter like two idiots clapping in church.”

“No wonder simple men have always had their gods dwell in the high places. For as soon as a man lets his eye drop from the heavens to the horizon, he risks setting it on some scene of desolation.”

“The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they became with it, and with themselves as well. They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness and power and beauty; for then, perhaps, it was easier to see something was missing in the garden, some tree or shrub that would not grow. When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle's eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn.”

“The two girls grew up at the edge of the ocean and knew it was paradise, and better than Eden, which was only a garden.”

“Reinforced to me again and again was how I was a ‘brave girl’ for not crying, a ‘good girl’ for not complaining, and soon I began defining myself this way, equating strength with silence.”