“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.”

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

“the tail of a comet can extend millionsof miles into space, always in the opposite direction of the sun, blown by the solar breeze. A comets tail is the closet thing to nothing that anything can be. I love that. The closest thing to nothing.”

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

“Someday we might look back with a curious nostalgia at the days when profligate homeowners wastefully sprayed their lawns with liquid gold to make the grass grow, just so they could then burn black gold to cut it down on the weekends.”

“A falcon hovers at the edge of the sky.Two gulls drift slowly up the river.Vulnerable while they ride the wind,they coast and glide with ease.Dew is heavy on the grass below,the spider's web is ready.Heaven's ways include the human:among a thousand sorrows, I stand alone.”