In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.

. . .nothing could eclipse the stain of his dirty, mortal mediocrity.

No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.

I feel like I could eat the world raw.

People are people, whatever age they're living in. The circumstances may have changed - we go to war with planes instead of chariots - but experiences of grief, longing, rage and love remain the same.

She wants you to be a god," I told him. "I know." His face twisted with embarrassment, and in spite of itself my heart lightened. It was such a boyish response. And so human. Parents, everywhere.

I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.