He'd never asked her whether she would prefer to have a master again, and now the thought of such a conversation made his throat tighten. In a sense it would be like asking someone whether they'd like to escape their present difficulties by killing themselves

But now he saw that truths were as innumerable as falsehoods—that for sheer teeming chaos, the world of man could only be matched by the world of the divine. And as he traveled backward the Almighty shrank smaller and smaller, until He was merely another desert deity, and His commandments seemed no more than the fearful demands of a jealous lover.

I trust you above all others", he told her. "Above myself". She shook her head, but then leaned into him, as though taking shelter. He drew her close, the crown of her head beneath his cheek. Beyond the hansom's window, New York was an endless rhythm of walls and windows and doors, darkened alleys, flashes of sunlight. he thought, if he could pick a moment to be taken into the flask, a moment to live in endlessly, perhaps he would choose this one: the passing city, and the woman at his side.

On a cloudless night, inky dark, with only a rind of a moon above, the Golem and the Jinni went walking together along the Prince Street rooftops.

A man might desire something for a moment, while a larger part of him rejects it. You'll need to learn to judge people by their actions, not their thoughts.

He'd lived so long in anticipation of his own death that to contemplate his future was like standing at the edge of a cliff, staring into a vertiginous rush of open sky.

Even in the driest desert a rainstorm could strike with little warning, and a jinni caught in the rain was in mortal danger. For no matter what shape a jinni might assume, be it human or animal or its own true shape of no shape at all, it was still a living spark of fire, and could easily be extinguished.

All at once his throat filled with tears.

Her father, indulgent in his concern, had opened his library to her, and at last she could read to her heart's content. In all, these past few weeks had been some of the most peaceable of her life. She had the sense of existing inside a fragile pause, a moment of grace.

If he wasn't careful, he'd fall to chasing his own mind, trapped in the maddening game of don't think about that.