“The baloney weighed the raven down, and the shopkeeper almost caught him as he whisked out the delicatessen door.”

“Like all shopkeepers, they are deep-down optimists. They have to be, because every morning they unlock the doors to their stores, turn on the lights, prepare for the day, and wait for people to walk in and hand them money.”

“He waved his hand; and it was as though, with an invisible feather wisk, he had brushed away a little dust, and the dust was Harappa, was Ur of the Chaldees; some spider-webs, and they were Thebes and Babylon and Cnossos and Mycenae. Whisk. Whisk—and where was Odysseus, where was Job, where were Jupiter and Gotama and Jesus? Whisk—and those specks of antique dirt called Athens and Rome, Jerusalem and the Middle Kingdom—all were gone. Whisk—the place where Italy had been empty. Whisk, the cathedrals; whisk, whisk, King Lear and the Thoughts of Pascal. Whisk, Passion; whisk, Requiem; whisk, Symphony; whisk...”

“Goodbye, Christian," I murmur."Ana, goodbye," he says softly, and he looks utterly, utterly broken,a man in agonizing pain, reflecting how I feel inside. I tear my gaze away from him before I can change my mind and try to comfort him.The elevator doors close close and it whisks me down to the bowels of the basement and to my own personal hell.”

“He remembered that right after that, he had stolen a loaf of bread from a delicatessen counter and had taken it home and devoured it, feeling that the world owed a loaf of bread to him, and more.”

“Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”