“And no one could have known if he had ever looked at her either as, without any semblance of progress in either of them, they draw slowly together as the wagon crawls terrifically toward her in its slow palpable aura of somnolence and red dust in which the steady feet of the mules move dreamlike and punctuate by the sparse jingle of harness and the limber bobbing of jackrabbit ears, the mules still neither asleep nor awake as he halts them.”

“Where's Amy?" Ian put in. "Will you please get her to call that Evan character? He rings here twenty times a day. He's either the most mule-headed person who ever lived, or he really likes your sister. She has to have mercy on him–on all of us!”

“The pull toward him came from her center. Her eyes never left his face as she moved to her hands and knees. She crawled slowly over the blanket, the breakfast, his legs, until her hands rested on either side of his hips. His smile lifted only on one side. He took care to stay very still, but his mouth opened slightly as she approached. This close to Blake she could smell him. Fresh, sweet fall leaves and mint.”

“We danced together. We didn’t look graceful, but how could we? She only had one leg and I had my eyes on her friend the whole night. Sure, her friend couldn’t dance either, and literally had two left feet, but I’ll take two left feet over one left foot any day.”

“He looked at her uncomfortably; blinking, you know, like one not sure whether he was awake or asleep.”

“He wanted and needed their love, but felt none towards them. He now had neither love nor humility nor purity”