“Fragments of memory flashed through his head. Matt saw fists descending on him mercilessly from all sides, but he couldn't remember who those fists belonged to. He did know that he had been moved recently; instead of bleeding on a cold, hard pavement, he had awakened in a hospital bed, looking up at a woman.”

“He clutched the watch hard in his fist, determined to destroy it, to prove that it couldn't be real. That she hadn't come here because of him, for him.That he hadn't done what he knew he had.”

“The moment the door slipped away beneath Ranulf's fist as she opened it, his heart had stopped.It had been racing with anticipation, but the second he saw her,he froze and stared, in shcok. A pink crease line ran down her cheek. "You've been sleeping!" he bellowed, barging his way into the room. All this time, he had been frantic, concerned that Bronwyn was upset with him, worried about her feelings...and instead of weeping inconsolably,she had been blissfully unconscious.”

“He remembered how satisfied he had been as a youngster, and that with the little he had had - a dog, a stick, an aloneness he loved (which did not bleed him like his later loneliness), and he wished he could have lived longer in his boyhood. This was an old thought with him.”

“All this had always been and he had never seen it; he was never present. Now he was present and belonged to it. Through his eyes he saw light and shadows; through his mind he was aware of moon and stars (p. 38).”

“For a long time he had been white smoke. He did not realize that until he left the hospital, because white smoke had no consciousness of itself. It faded into the white world of their bed sheets and walls; it was sucked away by the words of doctors who tried to talk to the invisible scattered smoke... They saw his outline but they did not realize it was hollow inside.”