“She should be on a hill somewhere, under a fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her and the rain to wash her clean.”

“Can you climb high enough to get above the clouds, look down on the rain from a place in the sun?”

“The sun came through the branches of the tree above her, and Ruth looked up past them. "I think she listens," she said, too softly to be heard.”

“In the woods lay a bleeding angel in all her glory. Her arms posed gracefully above her head and her hair soaked in the mud, the blood and feces in which she lay. Dying, fading into the other realm, her form christened by the rain as though the trees had begun to weep upon her in sadness for the brutality she had endured. (The Children of Ankh series)”

“She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun. Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.”

“Why, he wondered, should he remember her suddenly, on such a day, watching the rain falling on the apple trees?”