“You steal my donkey and then to apologize you bring me a flamingo?''He's irresistible, though,' Asher said, lifting Buddy onto his lap and pretending to squeeze his cheeks. 'Look at that face.''He is the ugliest thing I have ever seen.''I know,' Asher said, 'but he's one of God's creatures.”

“You,” he whispered, bringing his hand to hover by my cheek.“Are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”And then he touched me.”

“You have done an unwise thing, Martise of Asher,” he said softly. “You’ve caught my interest.”

“Why would he do that? I thought--he said--he loved me." "As if I needed a reason to hate him more," Asher muttered, avoiding my gaze.”

“You know, I have to tell you"--I tried to make my voice bright to lighten the moo--"this ring of yours has got to be the ugliest thing I have ever seen.""I'm insulted." He held his hand up to the moonlight and straightened the monstrosity on his finger. "My dad gave this to me when we moved to Michigan.'To remember the old life' he said. I've never taken it off. I look at it and see California.""Remind me never to visit California.”

“Now I stand on the knoll before the grave of Jacob Kahn, the cypress tall against the blue morning sky and the wind warm on my face. It is the only sense left me, I hear him say. There are colors in the wind, Asher Lev. Find your demons again and return to your work. Colors wait for you in the wind. Things were too comfortable for you. An artist needs a broken world in order to have pieces to shape into art. Isn't that right, Asher Lev? Comfort is death to art. Asher Lev, artist. Asher Lev, troubler. Asher Lev, my future. His voice weaves through the wind, and I add to it the words of the psalmist, " 'Protect me, O God, for I seek refuge in You. I say to the Lord, Your are my benefactor; there is no one above You....' " The wind is red and black in the trembling cypress.”