“... crystal spheres imprisoning green lizards, salamanders, millefiori bouquets dragonflies, a basket of pears, butterflies alighted on a frond of fern, swirls of pink and white and blue and white, shimmering like fireworks, cobras ready to strike, pretty little arrangements of pansies, magnificent poinsettias ...”

“Look, the world is everywhere: satellites, end tables, the pink and white poinsettias outside the church; reunions and degrees. All those radiant asterisks . . . Soon it will all make sense.”

“They became desperate for an antidote, such as coziness & color. They tried to bury the obligatory white sofas under Thai-silk throw pillows of every rebellious, iridescent shade of Magenta, pink, and tropical green imaginable. But the architect returned, as he always does, like the conscience of a Calvinist, and he lectured them and hectored them and chucked the shimmering little sweet things out.”

“We ate away, reminiscing about our victories over the enemies from different streets and villages and competing with each other in casting curses. A few golden butterflies and dragonflies were fluttering around us. The afternoon air was warm and clean, and the town below us seemed like a green harbor full of white sails.”

“She began to feel sacred, scared and the voices came and went and her body became brittle, falling, drying, like cold Annihilation, like blue crystal spectrum light, sinking but white. To Nurture, Mist thought, falling cold white crystals, forming, while dying. Returning, falling sky, dying, and finally, on her cold white body, she felt...Snow.”

“I see you have added a colored ribbon to your hair Master McArthur. Do you have an assortment of different color ribbons at home: yellow, white, pink, blue to match your pretty blue eyes?”