“The scribbled signature black, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red.”

“When I recollect her, I see a long list of colors, but it's the three in which I saw her in the flesh that resonate the most. Sometimes I manage to float far above those three moments. I hang suspended, until a septic truth bleeds toward clarity. That's when I see them formulate:THE COLORS RED: [rectangle]WHITE: [circle]BLACK: [swastika]They fall on top of each other. The scribbled signature black, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red.”

“When you step from the wings onto the stage you go from total blackness to a blinding hot glare. After a moment you adjust, but there is that moment. like being inside lightning.”

“And then, in a skittering, chittering rush, it came. The hand, running high on its fingertips, scrabbled through the tall grass and up onto a tree stump. It stood there for a moment, like crab tasting the air, and then it made one triumphant, nail-clacking leap onto the center of the tablecloth.Time slowed for Coraline. The white fingers closed around the black key....”

“Her light was so brilliant it burned my guilty shadow onto the floor, but I was not blinded.”

“Another damn'd thick, square book! Always, scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?(On publication of Vol. 1 of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire”