He rocked in the swells, floating like the first germ of life adrift on the earth's cooling seas, formless macule of plasm trapped in a vapor drop and all creation yet to come.

Finally he said that among men there was no such communion as among horses and the notion that men can be understood at all was probably an illusion.

He'd half meant to speak but those eyes had altered the world forever in the space of a heartbeat.

It is community and respect, of course, but the dead have more claims on you than what you might want to admit or even what you might know about and them claims can be very strong indeed. Very strong indeed.

But this man had set down with a hammer and chisel and carved out a stone water trough to last ten thousand years. Why was that? What was it that he had faith in? It wasn't that nothin' would change. Which is what you might think, I suppose. He had to know better'n that. I've thought about it a good deal. . . And I have to say that the only thing I can think is that there was some sort of promise in his heart. And I don't have no intentions of carvin' a stone water trough. But I would like to be able to make that kind of promise. I think that's what I would like most of all.

He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.

Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupations of men engaged in rash undertakings.