“Look how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold!”

“Clothes were scattered across the floor in piles, a duffel bag open on the floor as if it had exploded. Isabelle's bright silver-gold whip hung from one bedpost, a lacy white bra from another. Simon averted his eyes. The curtains were drawn, the lamps extinguished.Isabelle flopped down on the edge of the bed and looked at him with bitter amusement. "A blushing vampire. Who would have guessed.”

“Cam stepped into the clearing. His eyes were rimmed with a thick, shimmering gold shadow, and it shone on his face in the moonlight, making him look like a wildcat.”

“Hill tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun, And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run; Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air; Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.”

“When Amy returned to London she told me excitedly about some of the Hispanic women she’d seen in Miami, and how she wanted to blend their look – thick eyebrows, heavy eye-liner, bright red lipstick – with her passion for the sixties ‘beehive’.”

“Many surround themselves with luminaries, but in so doing they dull their own sparkle. If you want to shine bright, look to the heavens and see how the brightest star always stands apart from those lesser shining stars.”