“How else could he go on, except with merciful incomprehension held before him like a shield? How could anyone?”

“Roland’s heart seemed to twist like a rag inside his chest, and there was a moment to wonder how it could possibly go on beating in the face of this.”

“Never before in his life had he understood how subjective, how plastic, time really is.”

“Her hands were to her face but she could see through the prison of her fingers could see them how they were beautiful wrapped in light swathed in the bright angelic robes of Acceptance”

“Do any of us, except in our dreams, truly expect to be reunited with our hearts' deepest loves, even when they leave us only for minutes, and on the most mundane of errands? No, not at all. Each time they go from our sight we in our secret hearts count them as dead. Having been given so much, we reason, how could we expect not to be brought as low as Lucifer for the staggering presumption of our love?”

“It's funny how close the past is, sometimes. Sometimes it seems as if you could almost reach out and touch it. Only who really wants to?”

“Maybe he was as mad as he said he was, but she could see only a species of miserable fright. Suddenly, like the thud of a boxing glove on her mouth, she saw how close to the edge of everything he was. The agency was tottering, that was bad enough, and now, on top of that, like a grisly dessert following a putrid main course, his marriage was tottering too. She felt a rush of warmth for him, for this man she had sometimes hated and had, for the last three hours at least, feared. A kind of epiphany filled her. Most of all, she hoped he would always think he had been as mad as hell, and not . . . not the way his face said he felt.”