“Wherever he saw a hole he always wantedto know the depth of it. To him this was important.”

“The collar represented something of big importance to her. He knew she saw it as losing who she was. He saw it as her trusting him enough to let him be in charge.”

“Then El-ahrairah knew that Frith was too clever for him and he was frightened. He thought that the fox and the weasel were coming with Frith and he turned to the face of the hill and begin to dig. He dug a hole, but he had dug only a little of it when Frith came over the hill alone. And he saw El-ahrairah's bottom sticking out of the hole and the sand flying out in showers as the digging went on. When he saw that, he called out, 'My friend, have you seen El-ahrairah, for I am looking for him to give him my gift?' 'No,' answered El-ahrairah, without coming out, 'I have not seen him. He is far away. He could not come.' So Frith said, 'Then come out of that hole and I will bless you instead of him.' 'No, I cannot,' said El-ahrairah, 'I am busy. The fox and the weasel are coming. If you want to bless me you can bless my bottom, for it is sticking out of the hole.”

“Hong Kong, please watch over him, he saw that young man Lazaro in a dream and is convinced he’s a terrorist, always has been, and I should never have let him into the house that day with the tray of seafood I’d ordered; this anxiety gives him abominable, uncontrollable thoughts, but the analyst told me to look at it differently, he said I know the road he’s on, and even if it leads down into the abyss, yawning glaciers, he sees things we don’t, fresh tracks under a starlit night, for him brightly lit, so much so that even in the farthest depths he knows he can’t get lost, and you’ll see he’ll find his way back to us”

“Part of her followed him, wherever it was that he went.”

“What is first seen as a loss is now seen as a gain. For he finds solitude, not in far off, quite places; he creates it out of himself, spreads it around him, wherever he may be, because he loves it and slowly he ripens in this tranquility. For the inner process is beginning to unfold, stillness is extraordinarily important.”