“--while the sun and wind played gently in its spreading branches; the bells of the Donskoy monastery would sometimes float across--tranquil and sad--and I would sit and gaze and listen, and would be filled with a nameless sensation which had everything in it; sorrow and joy, a premonition of the future, and desire, and fear of life.”

“I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart for the joys of the multitude. And I would not have the tears that sadness makes to flow from my every part turn into laughter. I would that my life remain a tear and a smile.”

“How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible. Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him; or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless.”

“I feared the defining point of this Hell was its unrelenting uniformity, its lack of variation from type. If there was a heaven at the end of this, it must be filled with great variety, perhaps a multiplicity of intelligent species spread across universes. Yes, heaven would be as full of difference as Hell was of sameness.”

“I would be a wedge-tailed eagle. I would only live for the joy of flight. I would soar at great heights, on top of the wind. I would be above everything, over the little towns clinging to the highway. I would be a part of everything.”

“How resilient was the body, to return to its prior form so quickly! Yet the mind was formed of a less pliable substance. The emptiness in her thoughts would not be so easily filled. Instead there was a hollowness among them-a place she had reserved for future joys which now would never arrive.”