“The city is the size of a country, but has been operated like a candy store.”

“The knife of corruption endangered the life of New York City. The scalpel of the law is making us well again.”

“Manhattan is an accumulation of possible disasters that never happen.”

“You cook?” Alfred asked Martini, clearly shocked.“I can dress myself, too. And sometimes I can handle all Field Operations for the entire Centaurion Division. Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Right now there are thirty-one satellites zipping around the world with nothing better to do than help you find your way to the grocery store.”

“The U.S. was the immigration country of choice even for alien jellyfish things that turned humans into scary monsters. It made you proud, really.”

“Gloria Anzaldúa, who revolutionised the Chicana writing of her generation, called the border ‘una herida abierta – an open wound – where the Third World grates against the First and bleeds. And before a scab forms, it haemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two countries merging to form a third country – a border culture.”