“If one could drown in the grass, thought Elphie, that might be the best way to die.”

“Starlight and comet tails burned the tips of endless grass below into hammered silver. Like thousands of tapers in the chapel, just blown out but still glowing. If one could drown in the grass...it might be the best way to die.”

“...Though drowned was just as dead as any other way of dying.”

“A quick thought shot through my mind. Could I really drown in a dream? I remembered the movie the Matrix. If you died in the matrix, you died in real life. I wasn’t about to take a chance...”

“A little politeness might smooth the way ahead. Knowing it was his turn to be dispatched, the best he could hope for was as swift a death as the one Massetti had so thanklessly received.”

“I'm not irreplaceable ... I'm nothing but grass growing on the ground; when the grass dies, another one replaces it ...”