The sun burnt every day. It burnt time.

If you don't like what you're doing, then don't do it.

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.

A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.

The wind outside nested in each tree, prowled the sidewalks in invisible treads like unseen cats. Tom Skelton shivered. Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows' Eve. Everything seemed cut from soft black velvet or gold or orange velvet. Smoke panted up out of a thousand chimneys like the plumes of funeral parades. From kitchen windows drifted two pumpkin smells: gourds being cut, pies being baked.

This is the result of six billion years of evolution. Tonight, we have given the lie to gravity.We have reached for the stars.

The world, like a great iris of an even more gigantic eye, which has also just opened and stretched out to encompass everything, stared back at him.