“You know the rest. In the books you have readHow the British Regulars fired and fled,---How the farmers gave them ball for ball,From behind each fence and farmyard wall,Chasing the redcoats down the lane,Then crossing the fields to emerge againUnder the trees at the turn of the road,And only pausing to fire and load.So through the night rode Paul Revere;And so through the night went his cry of alarmTo every Middlesex village and farm,---A cry of defiance, and not of fear,A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,And a word that shall echo for evermore!For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,Through all our history, to the last,In the hour of darkness and peril and need,The people will waken and listen to hearThe hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,And the midnight message of Paul Revere.”

“He ran his fingers over the moist ends of her hair and across her face. Her eyes were wet. Jesus Christ. How many nights had he heard Lily crying. As some parents sleep through fire, thunderstorms, and voices at the back door only to wake at a child’s whisper, so Everett heard Lily crying at night. Her muffled sobs seemed to have broken his dreams for years. He had heard her even at Fort Lewis, even in Georgia, finally at Bliss. That was Lily crying in the wings whenever the priest came to tear up his mother’s grave. Lily cried in the twilight field where he picked wild poppies with Martha; Lily’s was the cry he heard those nights the kiln burned, the levee broke, the ranch went to nothing.”

“You darkness, that I come from,I love you more than all the firesthat fence in the world,for the fire makesa circle of light for everyone,and then no one outside learns of you.But the darkness pulls in everything:shapes and fires, animals and myself,how easily it gathers them! -powers and people -and it is possible a great energyis moving near me.I have faith in nights.”

“Remember, no matter how dark the night, there is always a happy ending. But first, you have to make it through the night.”

“You cried for night - it falls. Now cry in darkness.”

“May you have warm words on a cool evening, a full moon on a dark night, and a smooth road all the way to your door.”