“I toyed briefly with an image someone once mentioned to me, of a village in the shadow of a twin-peaked mountain. In the morning the sun rises. At lunch it sets behind the mountain. In the early afternoon it rises once more. The cocks crow for the second time, and later the sun sets again. No. One peak. Metaphors should not be belaboured.”

“Too soon, the sun will rise.”

“He was alone in the darkness once more, but the darkness became brighter and brighter until it was burning like the sun.”

“All around me darkness gathers, Fading is the sun that shone, We must speak of other matters, You can be me when I'm goneFlowers gathered in the morning,Afternoon they blossom on,Still are withered in the evening,You can be me when I'm gone.”

“And then it went, and time passed properly once more, every second following every other second just like they're meant to.”

“As Shadow passed it he noticed that the newsreader was grinning and winking at him. When he was sure that no one was looking in his direction he gave the set the finger.”

“It was sometimes said that the grey-and-black mountain range which ran like a spine north to south down that part of Faerie had once been a giant, who grew so huge and so heavy that, one day, worn out from the sheer effort of moving and living, he had stretched out on the plain and fallen into a sleep so profound that centuries passed between heartbeats.”