“On nights like this, when he rode out from the dark, silent house to the dark, deserted park, he couldforget.He could be nothing but a solitary rider on a fast horse, wind in his face and the world open around him.No walls, no bars, no quiet weeping or screams or death. None of that could catch him. On a night likethis, none of it could find him.”

“Sometimes, in the dark of night, when no one else could hear him but me, he'd cry out, like he was fighting some silent little war in his head.”

“He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor hear her voice touch his ear. He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.”

“For years afterwards when Amory thought of Eleanor he seemed still to hear the wind sobbing around him and sending little chills into the places beside his heart. The night when they rode up the slope and watched the cold moon float through the clouds, he lost a further part of him that nothing could restore; and when he lost it he lost also the power of regretting it.”

“He imagined that in his estate of eternal night he might somehow have already halved the distance to death. That the transition for him could not be so great for the world was already at some certain distance and if it were not death's terrain he encroached upon in his darkness then whose?”

“Bran had told himself a hundred times how much he hated hiding down here in the dark, how much he wanted to see the sun again, to ridehis horse through wind and rain. But now that the moment was upon him, he was afraid. He’d felt safe in the darkness; when you could noteven find your own hand in front of your face, it was easy to believe that no enemies could ever find you either.”