The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion. Colors. The names of birds. Things to eat. Finally the name of things one believed to be true. More fragile than he would have thought. How much was gone already? The sacred idiom shorn of its referents and so of its reality. Drawing down like something trying to preserve heat. In time to wink out forever.

I will do what I promised." He whispered. "No matter what. I will not send you into the darkness alone.

There is no forgiveness. For women. A man may lose his honor and regain it again. But a woman cannot. She cannot.

Suttree stood among the screaming leaves and called the lightning down. It cracked and boomed about and he pointed out the darkened heart within him and cried for light. If there be any art in the weathers of this earth. Or char these bones to coal. If you can, if you can. A blackened rag in the rain.

People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that, nothing is the same.

The wrath of God lies sleeping. It was hid a million years before men were and only men have the power to wake it.

No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.