“For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but in the end she is as bitter as wormword, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell”

“But she wasn't a little girl, she was a beautiful woman, tall and lovely, with tresses of black hair that curved like cupped hands around her face.”

“This isn't a question of odds. Of all the men in the world, that woman hose you. If she's still out there, she's waiting for you. Staying alive any way she can until you find her.”

“And then, despite all these concerns, Arnette felt her mind begin to loosen, the images of the day unwinding inside her like a spool of thread, pulling her down into sleep.”

“The lie had worked so far, but Lacey felt its softness, like a floor of rotten boards beneath her feet.”

“In her mind's eye she saw it, saw it all at last: the rolling armies and the flames of battle; the graves and pits and dying cries of a hundred million souls; the spreading darkness, like a black wing stretching over the earth; the last, bitter hours of cruelty and sorrow, and the terrible, final flights; death's great dominion over all, and, at the last, empty cities, becalmed by the silence of a hundred years. Already these things were coming to pass.”

“The progress of her aging seemed to occur in fits and starts, not so much a matter of physical growth as a deepening self-possession, as if she were coming into ownership of her life.”