“With Tom, there had never been a door to close, only the grass to lie on, never a bed; no walls, no ceiling to shut them in - or others out. Only the moon to see them, only the moon, some stars and whatever it was that had flown up out of the field when Ede had cried 'don't' in the final seconds of their embrace. Don't - meaning don't withdraw.”

“I realized I still had my eyes shut. I had shut them when I put my face to the screen, like I was scared to look outside. Now I had to open them. I looked out the window and saw for the first time how the hospital was out in the country. The moon was low in the sky over the pastureland; the face of it was scarred and scuffed where it had just torn up out of the snarl of scrub oak and madrone trees on the horizon. The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon. I was off on a hunt with Papa and the uncles and I lay rolled in blankets Grandma had woven, lying off a piece from where the men hunkered around the fire as they passed a quart jar of cactus liquor in a silent circle. I watched that big Oregon prairie moon above me put all the stars around it to shame. I kept awake watching, to see if the moon ever got dimmer or the stars got brighter, till the dew commenced to drift onto my cheeks and I had to pull a blanket over my head.”

“Oh, if the moon only had a secret, if the moon only held a truth. But the moon was just the moon.”

“Bird, don't sound so crushed. The fact that I had never had sex before can only have been significant for me, if it had any meaning at all-it had nothing to do with you.”

“A full moon is poison to some; they shut it out at every crevice, and do not suffer a ray to cross them; it has a chemical or magical effect; it sickens them. But I am never more free and royal than when the subtile celerity of its magic combinations, whatever they are, is at work.”

“Lying in the bed that had once held two, Lisey thought alone never felt more lonely than when you woke up and discovered you still had the house to yourself. That you and the mice in the walls were the only ones still breathing.”