“There was no moon, no stars, but even the darkest of nights steals light from somewhere.”

“It was essential that someone, somewhere, even if it was only the fairy folk, should know that the human race had produced more than wars, catastrophes, and ultimately its own slow and painful self-destruction. It had produced things of exquisite and lasting beauty as well.”

“There were always too many hours in the day and never enough in the night.”

“The realization had brought with it a sudden stark insight into another kind of glamour. It was quite a long time ago now, but he saw it quite clearly: how the media and the advertisers had created their own kind of glamour to seduce whole populations into a kind of insanity. Food that was bad for people, drink that turned them into mindless thugs, countless tons of useless rubbish, all dressed up by advertising glamour to appear like things people couldn't live without. And the human race had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, becoming....[c]onsumers of limitless glamour, all of it ultimately worthless.”

“And he has tried to swim that stream,And he swam on both strong and steady,But the river was wide and strength did fail,And never more he'll see his Annie.And woe betide the willow wan,And woe betide the bush and briar,For they broke beneath her true love's hand,When strength did fail and limbs did tire.”

“a tangle of sea smell and of weeds and damp, new-plowed earth, mingled with the heavy perfumes of white blossoms somewhere near, but the night sat lightly upon the sea and the land. there was no weight of darkness, there were no shadows. the white light of the moon had fallen upon the world like the mystery and the softness of sleep.”

“She was the breeze on a summer's day, the first drops of rain when the earth was parched, light from the evening star.”