“Then the sun broke above the crest of the hills and the entire countryside looked soaked in blood, the arroyos deep in shadow, the cones of dead volcanoes stark and biscuit-colored against the sky. I could smell pinion trees, wet sage, woodsmoke, cattle in the pastures, and creek water that had melted from snow. I could smell the way the country probably was when it was only a dream in the mind of God.”

“The true rain came in a monster wind, and the storm broke in blackness over the hills and the bloody valley; the sky opened along the ridge, and the vast water thundered down, drowning the fires, flooding the red creeks, washing the rocks and the grass and the white bones of the dead, cleansing the earth and soaking it thick and rich with water and wet again with clean cold rainwater, driving the blood deep into the Earth, to grow it again with the roots toward heaven.”

“There's something about being from Maine that you can never let hold of - the pointed firs and feathery pine trees, the wide open sky and stars and moon on a cold night, the ocean, which smells of this wonderful mix of saline and savory, and the colors - deep golds and reds and browns in the fall lit against a perfect blue sky; the lush, wet greens of summer and clean, white snow of winter piled against dark, stoic evergreens.”

“The sun had already set behind the mountains, and the sky had been drained of color. The trellises of sauvignon blanc flowed down the hill in even rows toward the valley floor. Whatever I was looking for, it wasn’t outside. As far as I could tell, the grapes were minding their own business.”

“She's like snow in Russian," said Anna. "Snow in the evening when the sun sets and it looks like Alpengluhen, you know? And if snow had a scent it would smell like that [the rose]....”

“I wanted to smell the guitars. It's hard to explain but they have a smell. And the best way I could ever describe it would be to say they smell like potential. Ambition and desire. If such things had a smell.”