“...my limbs became leaden, my head light as yarn on a weaver's spindle. My vision dazzled with the colours of richly shot silk; above me the sky was a tentative white canopy.”

“This is my vision-what I imagine I'll pass through on my way to the light. The blue sky, the clouds, the rays of light.”

“And a face above mine, white and beautiful, eyes as large as the moon. You saved me. A hand on my cheek, cool and dry. Why did you save me? Words welling up on a tide: No, the opposite. Eyes the colour of a dawn sky, a crown of blond hair, so bright and white and blinding I could swear it was a halo.”

“I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the colour and fragrance of a flower - the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.”

“Pure-limbed, white-canopied, one-wheeled, the cart roles on. See him that cometh: faultless, stream-cutter, bondless he.”

“...a small piece of silk. It was at once iridescent and delicate, and shone with a colour no Occidental could ever have conceived....I held it in my hands, allowing it to cascade from my fingers. It was shot through with so many strands of colour that every time it moved its appearance changed: moonlight, emeralds and pearls all passed through my hands. This cold chameleon so transformed itself that I could scarcely believe it was the same piece of cloth.”