"He'd never known lonely. If he put his head to it at all he couldn't work a definition for the word. It sat in him undefined and unnecessary like algebra; land and moon and water summing up the only equation that lent scope to the world, and he rode through it fleshed out and comfortable with the feel of the land around him like the refrain of an old hymn. It was what he knew. It was what he needed."
"Down the one side was a tangle of lilacs, un-pruned and ramshackle, old and uncared for, scraping against the side of the house, and there was only one bloom. It sat high at the point farthest from the house. A small dab of color."
"They snowshoed in for two hours, built a fire, and drank strong tea, and in that cold and barren-feeling world, the kid came to know Christmas as a time when the land and its emptiness were perfect."
