“This thing all things devours:Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;Gnaws iron, bites steel;Grinds hard stones to meal;Slays king, ruins town,And beats high mountain down.”

“You walk for days among trees and among stones. Rarely does the eye light on a thing, and then only when it has recognized that thing as the sign of another thing: a print in the sand indicates the tiger's passage; a marsh announces a vein of water; the hibiscus flower, the end of winter. All the rest is silent and interchangeable; trees and stones are only what they are.”

“Erich, they differ from us only in the limitations imposed upon them by stone, as opposed to iron and steel.”

“They bowed down to him rather, because he was all of these things, and then again he was all of these things because the town bowed down.”

“All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man. The air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.”

“I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin.”