“People find a way through just about anything.”

“Goats and oxen, pulling carts in from the field, left their big, smelly plops all over. these got cleaned up eventually-someone came and scraped them into buckets and took them away-but often this didn't happen until halfway through the morning, and people had to step carefully until then and breathe in that powerful smell.”

“I try to remind myself that we are never promised anything, and that what control we can exert is not over the events that befall us but how we address ourselves to them.”

“She started back down the trail. If no dogs find the food, she thought, maybe squirrels will. Or that white bear. Or if no one finds it, then it can all be for God. Only not for the Prophet's God, her mean, picky God who dislikes so many things. It's for my God, the god of dogs and snakes and dust mites and albino bears and Siamese twins, the god of stars and starships and other dimensions, the god who loves everyone and who makes everything marvelous.”

“A darkness different from Ember's, but just as frightening...”

“Unintended consequences, he thought miserably.He was angry at his anger, the way it surged upand took over.”

“Wouldn't it be strange, she thought, to have a blue sky? But she liked the way it looked. It would be beautiful - a blue sky.”