“He spoke with a deep clarion power she imagined renegade angels might use, as they called one another to war with God.”

“He had illuminated the heartbreaking cruelty of war: When men who fight become nothing, only packages of bones and blood deposited in the earth with no clarion call to memory, those they love are left without a way to make such devastating loss hold meaning.”

“His answers were quite often like that. When she spoke of beauty, he spoke of the fatty tissue supporting the epidermis. When she mentioned love, he responded with the statistical curve that indicates the automatic rise and fall in the annual birthrate. When she spoke of the great figures in art, he traced the chain of borrowings that links these figures to one another.”

“Daddy used to say that calling a person a romantic was just another way of saying he or she acted without regard for conseqences.”

“He was as temptingly made as the first Adam must have been. God hadn't shirked his duties when creating Gideon Horn. No, indeed. In fact, she wondered if God hadn't put just a jot too much effort into it. He should have given the man something more useful than good looks and a treacherous charm. Humility, for example. She tried to imagine a humble Gideon, but it was impossible. Such a creature would be beyond even the Almighty's powers of imagination.”

“so" he asked. She was stunned and amazed-and happier than she'd ever been before. It couldn't possibly be real, she thought-unless she spoke the truth aloud, with Daniel and the rest of the fallen angels there to witness. "I'm Lucinda," she said. "I'm your angel.”