It’s the place of the story, beginning here, in the meadow of late summer flowers, thriving before the Atlantic storms drive wet and winter upon them all.

Speaking uses us up, speeds us up. Without prayer, that act of confession for merely existing, one might live forever and not know it.

That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness-and life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same.

If one could drown in the grass, thought Elphie, that might be the best way to die.

Of course. You get everything from books.

For fun? Maybe evil is an art form.

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.