The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say.

How poetic you are," she said. "I've a notion that poetry is the highest form of self-deception.

Elena had always felt like the center of her own world - who doesn't? The world arranged itself around her like petals around the stem of a flower. This way the meadows, that way the woodland. Over here, the baryn's estate, out there, the hills that hug the known world close and imply a world at beyond. She could never come up with the edge of a world, because it always kept going on beyond. She moved the center of the world as she walked. The world was balanced on her head.

Light will blind us in time, but what we learn in the dark can see us through.

Small steps to the madhouse still get us there at last

The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew.

Little critters fried like fritters come out crunchy and divine.