Sophie's hard first question to the cards had not, precisely, gone without an answer, it had been transmuted into questions about the question. It ha… - John Crowley

she could do things when her body was busy that she could at no other time, things like assemble her worries into ranks, each rank commanded by a hope.

Daily Alice awoke, as she always did, when the sun broke in at her eastward windows with a noise like music. She kicked off the figured coverlet and lay naked in the long bars of sun for a time, touching herself awake, finding eyes, knees, breasts, red-gold hair all in place and where she had left them. Then she stood, stretched, brushed the last of sleep from her face, and knelt by the bed amid the squares of sun and said, as she had every morning since she could speak, her prayers:

O great wide beautiful wonderful World
With the wonderful waters around you curled
And the beautiful grass upon your breast
O World you are beautifully dressed.

Love is a myth.'
'Love is a myth,' Grandfather Trout said. 'Like summer.'
'What?'
'In winter,'Grandfather Trout said, 'summer is a myth. A report, a rumor. Not to be believed in. Get it? Love is a myth. So is summer.