“The HurricaneThe tree lay downon the garage roof and stretched, You have your heaven, it said, go to it.”

“I’ll tell you something,' he said, as if he had said nothing that day. 'You’re walking on gallows ground, and there’s a rope around your neck and a raven-bird on each shoulder waiting for your eyes, and the gallows tree has deep roots, for it stretches from heaven to hell, and our world is only the branch from which the rope is swinging.”

“The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond; the white squares were the roofs of the garage, the old barn, the rabbit hutches, the chicken coops. Further back there were only the flat fields of Dawson's farm, dimly white-striped. All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere.”

“Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian, anymore than standing in your garage makes you a car.”

“Ashes to ashes. Garage sale to garage sale,” I said.”

“It was funny how you could go somewhere and your whole life could stretch out and then you could come home and have it all shrink back to the way it was before. It was funny that it didn’t stay stretched.”