“That’s exactly where they send entry-level diplomats. After you cut your teeth on a few civil wars and a famine or two, you might get lucky and be given a plum post somewhere in the SECOND World.”

“That’s the thing you girls never get. It doesn't matter if you just woke up, or just got done bawling, or just finished your make-up. When a guy’s all love-sick over a chick, she looks exactly the same to him all the time: perfect.”

“So ‘fatal’ only kills you two out of three times these days? That’s good to know.”

“Because trying to think of how to ask a woman you’ve known for exactly two days if she’d be willing to get into a car with you and take a road trip across the country was something I hadn’t quite worked up to yet.”

“Alice, it took big, dumb Talon Dodo thirty seconds to get you so pissed about a poker hand pun that you were about to beat him to death with your cane.”

“Oh, and Mr. Montgomery? I think I counted about four dozen important-sounding words and almost no substance at all in that explanation. I don’t think you should close the door on your diplomatic career entirely.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly how I feel when I’m around you: confused, but still satisfied.' I freeze, trying to figure out how to cancel it out and replace it with something that sounds a whole lot less like sex and a candy bar ad.”