And death? I don't fear death. I dread the absence of it.

The attacking piece displaces its victim. The vanquished piece leaves the plane of the board entirely. But it does not, in a higher sense, cease to exist.

It was possible at last to hear the silence to appreciate that there was a silence, deep and potent, out there beyond the pretension of the light.

When does loyalty become martyrdom?

I suppose every decade gets the music it deserves.

Times like this, with the wind moving the grass and curling around her like a huge cool hand, Tess felt the world as a second presence, as another person, as if the wind and the grass had voices of their own and she could hear them talking.

Children wear their natures like brightly-colored clothes; that's why they lie so transparently. Adulthood is the art of deceit.