“The lizard dragged the priest’s body back to her nest, and her children feasted very well. As for the rifle, it lay in the grass where Father Gomez had laid it down, quietly turning to rust.”

“Sure, this was where her father had planned the De Beers diamond heist when she was three. It was the very room where her uncle had orchestrated the hijacking of eighty percent of the world's caviar when she was seven.”

“She turned her face up to the strange stars and wondered in what direction her course lay. The sky looked blankly down upon her with its myriad meaningless eyes.”

“Her shoulders sagging, her back hunched, her eyelids tired, Rose-Anna sewed for the feast, not daring even to sing for fear of frightening off her joy.”

“And when like her, oh, Saki, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One — turn down an empty Glass!”

“It was admitted by all her friends, and also by her enemies — who were in truth the more numerous and active body of the two — that Lizzie Greystock had done very well with herself.”

“More than anything, she wanted to crawl across the bloody sand toward the place where Jace’s body lay, crawl to him and lay down beside him and put her arms around him, even though he was gone.”

“Her gentle limbs did she undress,
And lay down in her loveliness.”

“As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.”

“It's interesting… there are two different kinds of dinosaurs - the bird-hip and the lizard-hip dinosaur. Their hips are very different. Ask an evolutionist, "Which type of dinosaur evolved into the bird? Was it the bird-hip or the lizard-hip?" And they will probably kind of hang their head and quietly say, "Well, it was the lizard-hip." Oh, so now the hip's got to turn around backwards too in addition to the billions of other changes you've got to make. There's no evidence of how dinosaurs evolved to birds. None.”