“In the Queen's prayerbook, along with theblood-stain, was also a lock of hair and a crumb of pastry; Orlando nowadded to these keepsakes a flake of tobacco, and so, reading and smoking,was moved by the humane jumble of them all--the hair, the pastry, theblood-stain, the tobacco--to such a mood of contemplation as gave her areverent air suitable in the circumstances, though she had, it is said,no traffic with the usual God.”

“I unbuckled her. She barely stirred. A lock of hair had fallen in her face so I gave in to the urge to touch it. Reaching up I tucked the hair behind her ear. She was so damn beautiful. I'd never move on from her. It wasn't possible. I had to find a way to get her back.”

“Tobacco put food on our tables, steeples on our churches, stains on our fingers, spots on our lungs, and contradictions in our hearts.”

“It was agreeable to her, the smell of tobacco. It was part of her knowledge of his body. It was the aura of the man, a residue of smoke and unbroken habit, a dimension in the night, and she lapped it off the curled gray hairs on his chest and tasted it in his mouth. It was who he was in the dark, cigarettes and mumbled sleep and a hundred other things nameable and not.”

“No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid; but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid.”

“The leaf fall of his words, the stained glass hues of his moods, the rust in his voice, the smoke in his mouth, his breath on my vision like human breath blinding a mirror.”