“How did you merit so much devotion so quickly?’ I asked, making no attempt to keep the sarcasm from my voice.’I show them Heaven’, said she, without a trace of irony. ‘People are so desperate for light’.”

“I had felt the shot coming; I hadn’t realized the bow was loaded with this very quarrel, perfectly calibrated to hit him hardest. What part of me had been studying him, stockpiling knowledge as ammunition?”