“The rabbit is one of the few animals that (de facto) enjoys screwing: after copulating it does a backward flip and drums on the ground. If it could light up a fag, it would no doubt do that too, and blow smoke rings into the sky.”

“The immediate issue here is whether the Pooh animals realise they constitute a de facto nudist colony.”

“Then she declared loudly, “Smoke break!” and everyone’s eyes came to us, some of them shocked seeing as these days you could light up a doobie and no one would blink but if you lit up a smoke, you courted being publicly stoned to death.”

“I hadn't understood funeral pyres before, but now I do. It's ghastly to burn someone you love but watching the smoke going into the sky, I think that's rather beautiful now. And I wish Tess could be up in the sky. Somewhere with color and light and air.”

“What sense does it make that one god would create all? Why would he create … rabbits. Soft and cuddly, yes? And then create foxes that hunt them down and tear them to shreds? Why do that? That god is no god to the rabbits. He is a demon that favors their enemies. But nor does that god honor the fox, for he creates other animals bigger than it. Creates wolves. Creates you Acacians. Even you, Rialus, could kill a fox if you were lucky and had the right weapon.” “And if the creature was lame or old,” Jàfith added.”

“It was still very wet under the trees. A careless tug at a branch might flip cold rainbow-edged drops down your back. And the sky was gray as concrete. But they enjoyed the silence, the soft sucking ground matted with last year's needles.”