“I had a dogwho loved flowers.Briskly she wentthrough the fields,yet pausedfor the honeysuckleor the rose,her dark headand her wet nosetouchingthe faceof every onewith its petalsof silkwith its fragrancerisinginto the airwhere the bees,their bodiesheavy with pollenhovered -and easilyshe adoredevery blossomnot in the seriouscareful waythat we choosethis blossom or that blossomthe way we praise or don't praise -the way we loveor don't love -but the waywe long to be -that happyin the heaven of earth -that wild, that loving.”

“We all want to be loved, don't we? Everyone looks for a way of finding love. It's a constant search for affection in every walk of life.”

“We talked of love, and all we said would fill a book thicker than this. Yet all we said was only this: that I loved her and she loved me, and we had waited long and long, would be parted no longer.”

“I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise. ”

“It's funny, I wonder why we like being praised. There's no money in it. Fame? How famous could we get? . . . Aren't humans absurd? I suppose we like praise for its own sake. The way children like ice cream. It's an inferiority complex, that's what it is. Praise assuages our insecurities. And ridiculously so.”

“Love has different shades. Like the way I loved Cassia when I thought she'd never love me. The way I loved her on the Hill. The way I love her now that she came into the canyon for me. It's different. Deeper. I thought I loved her and wanted her before, but as we walk through the canyon together I realize this could be more than a new shade. A whole new color.”