“ANOTHER TWILIGHTAllow the point of the Croccodrillo its hazy cypress trees in profile Like a rough sketch for the Isle of the Dead, as seen from yellow stucco, his Villa Igea where Lawrence finished "Sons and Lovers," wild thyme scenting olive-grove grass, crime scenery come back to more than once.Again you're mirrored in lake shadow, a white sail flaking on its turquoise wavelets, keep awake by traffic noiseAlong the Gardesana...and you know that this beauty's unbearable as before even if seen from its opposite shore.”

“Banks felt more alone and further away for having just talked to Sophia than he had before her call. But it was always like that - the telephone might bring you together for a few moments, but there's nothing like it for emphasising distance.”

“The glee of it. The ecstasy of It. I can't speak about this It because I know no word. It is just there, It is always there, like death in life. In this instant I know that something terrible is rising that must be seized and turned back upon itself before it twists outward into violence. But that knowing always comes too late, a wild unraveling is under way and I am caught up in it like a coyote seen late one afternoon in an Arkansas tornado-a toy dog spinning skyward, struck white by a ray of sun against black clouds, then black, then white, then gone and lost forever. The wind dies. A dead stillness. Mirror water. That ecstasy that shivered every nerve replaced by the precise knowing that what this self perpetrated is as much a part of the universal will as erupting lava that subsides once more into the inner earth.”

“Again the starter and the engine, and after a minute or two the rattle and pop of gravel as the DeSoto eased backward out of the barn. It gleamed darkly and demurely, like a ripe plum. Its chrome was polished, hubcaps and grille, and the side walls of the tires were snowy white. There was a preposterous beauty in all that shine that made her laugh. Jack put his arm out of the window, waiving his hat like a visiting dignitary, backed into the street, and floated away, gentling the gleaming dirigible through the shadows of arching elm trees, light dropping on it through their leaves like confetti as it made its ceremonious passage.”

“You haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky.”

“I have just finished "All the Colorsof Darkness" 090209”

“Please don't tell your family that I'm here," he says softly. "I want to keep a low profile.""Done," I say, knowing that the story of how I got caught peeping in his back window like a weirdo will be an easy secret to keep.”