“The alarm shakes the bedside table. Without opening her eyes, Elisa feels for the clock’s ice-cold stopper. She’d been in a deep, soft, warm dream and wanted it back, one more tantalizing minute. But the dream eludes wakeful pursuit; it always does. There was water, dark water-that much she remembers. Tons of it, pressing at her, only she didn’t drown. She breathed inside it better, in fact, than she does here, in waking life, in drafty rooms, in cheap food, in sputtering electricity.”
″‘Gingko is soft and tender, like the skin of a baby. One taste and you will live forever,’ Shang said, ‘and the nuts grow on the top of the tree just outside the door.‘”
“The Great Storm-Cat grew quiet: gone was his hunger for hunting, for making his meal of the mice-men.
Only the pleasure of the purring remained.
Then the Great Storm-Cat began to purr with Mowzer, and as the soft sound grew, the winds waned and the waves weakened.”
“We tried out big chairs and smaller ones, high chairs and low chairs, soft chairs and harder ones. Grandma said she felt like Goldilocks in “The Three Bears” trying out all the chairs.”
“Mog was very sleepy. She found a nice warm, soft place and went to sleep. She had a lovely dream. Mog dreamed that she had wings. She could fly everywhere. She could fly faster than the birds, even quite big birds...Suddenly she woke up.”
“Yes, a chair. A wonderful, beautiful, fat, soft, armchair. We will get one covered in velvet with roses all over it. We are going to get the best chair in the whole world.”
“We tried out big chairs and smaller ones, high chairs and low chairs, soft chairs and harder ones. Grandma said she felt like Goldilocks in “The Three Bears” trying out all the chairs.”
“She sang the song very softly: ‘I do not like the way you slide, I do not like your soft inside, I do not like you lots of ways, And I could do for many days without eggs’ ”
“I have a little doll, I take care of her clothes;
She has soft flaxen hair, and her name is Rose.
She has pretty blue eyes, and a very small nose,
And a funny little mouth, and her name is Rose.”
“What a joyful thing it is to awaken, on a fresh glorious morning, and find the rising sun staring into your face with dazzling brilliancy! -to see the birds twittering in the bushes, and to hear the murmuring of a rill, or the soft hissing ripples as they fall upon the sea-shore!”
“This little baby was the funniest wee creature. He was only about an inch long and covered with soft baby fur, had two big ears, compared to the size of the rest of him, a tiny black nose, and two beady eyes. His mother and father always had a surprised look on their faces, but they looked more surprised than ever now as they gazed at their baby.”