“Yet even in such moments she didn’t doubt that God existed. She just sometimes wondered if He remembered that she did.”

“Cecilia wondered, as she sometimes did when she met a man for the first time, if this was the one she was going to marry, and whether it was this particular moment she would remember for the rest of her life - with gratitude, or profound and particular regret.”

“When did she lose her wonder? When did she start existing and quit living?”

“Those who sought her never found her, yet she was known to come to the aid of those in greatest need. And, then again, sometimes she didn’t. She was like that. She didn’t like the clicking of rosaries, but was attracted to the sound of dice. No man knew what She looked like, although there were many times when a man who was gambling his life on the turn of the cards would pick up the hand he had been dealt and stare Her full in the face. Of course, sometimes he didn’t. Among all the gods she was at one and the same time the most courted and the most cursed.”

“This was the absolute last woman on earth he should want—she was trouble, in so many ways. She was troubled, and that was just one of the reasons he didn’t need this.This was the absolute last woman on earth he wanted to want—she just plain and simple was trouble—he could feel that in his bones.And yet, as he stared into those big, green eyes, he did want.Hell, did he want.”

“It wasn't that Mattie didn't believe in God. She did, she most surely did. She just didn't like some of the things He did, is all.”