“Count yourself fortunate." He made an elegant sweep of his hand toward the sun. "Daylight does not make them turn to ash, but they become bloody damn infants, whinging on about irritated eyes and sluggish limbs and so forth.”

“WAKE! for the sun, the shepherd of the sky,Has penned the stars within their fold on high,And, shaking darkness from his mighty limbs,Scatters the daylight from his burning eye.”

“They spent a summer talking beneath the redwoods. There was a curiosity to the way they knew. She would take his hips in her hands and turn him to the left, so the sun would not be in his eyes. He would take her hips in his hands and turn her to the right, so the sun would not be in her eyes.. It is a dance. A very careful way they care.”

“His mind has become a refuge for old thoughts, idle, indigent, with nowhere else to go. He ought to chase them out, sweep the premises clean. But he does not care to do so, or does not care enough"(72).”

“The stairs ended. I wished I knew the jackass who’d made the staircase so short. I’d throw him down the damn steps so he could count them with his head.”

“As iron cast into fire loses its rust and becomes glowing white, so he who turns completely to God is stripped of his sluggishness and changed into a new man.”