“The exact moment of dawn is always hard to spot, especially when the ground breathes out steam after a winter rain.”

“Perhaps because it seems so appropriate, I don't notice the rain. It falls in sheets, a blanket of silvery thread rushing to the hard almost-winter ground. Still, I stand without moving at the side of the coffin.”

“There are a lot of truths in this world. When it rains it pours. It's always darkest before the dawn. He who smelt it dealt it.”

“The hard thin body of my childhood was just beginning to miraculously soften like the cracked ground of wadi when rain falls.”

“You see, my love. As you've always said, after the rain-"Sun."After the darkness-"Light."And after the illness-"Health."Exactly," said the Tsar. "We mustn't give up faith.”

“You know how it is as a rule, when you want to get Chappie A on Spot B at exactly the same moment when Chappie C is on Spot D. There's always a chance of a hitch. Take the case of a general, I mean to say, who's planning out a big movement. He tells one regiment to capture the hill with the windmill on it at the exact moment when another regiment is taking the bridgehead or something down in the valley; and everything gets all messed up. And then, when they're chatting the thing over in camp that night, the colonel of the first regiment says, "Oh, sorry! Did you say the hill with the windmill? I thought you said the one with the flock of sheep." And there you are!”