“We cannot know his legendary headwith eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torsois still suffused with brilliance from inside,like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,gleams in all its power. Otherwisethe curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor coulda smile run through the placid hips and thighsto that dark center where procreation flared.Otherwise this stone would seem defacedbeneath the translucent cascade of the shouldersand would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:would not, from all the borders of itself,burst like a star: for here there is no placethat does not see you. You must change your life.”

“For here there is no placethat does not see you. You must change your life.”

“At most, a hundred paces separated him from them. The powerful beast, seeing the riders and horses, rose on his fore paws and began to gaze at them. The sun, which now stood low, illuminated his huge head and shaggy breasts, and in that ruddy luster he was like one of those sphinxes which ornament the entrances to ancient Egyptian temples.”

“Even in the darkness of the closed box she felt trapped inside, she could see light shining in through tiny holes on the lid.They were like the stars beckoning her towards a place where all would be simple . . . away from the shadows, away from the darkness.”

“If you were mine,” he murmured low under his breath, “I would walk through the fires of hell itself to keep you away from a man like me.”

“And, most important of all," added the Mathemagician, "here is your own magic staff. Use it well and there is nothing it cannot do for you."He placed in Milo's breast pocket a small gleaming pencil which, except for the size, was much like his own.”