“Once they were librarians, but that is a subject they will only discuss if heavily intoxicated.”

“The Burgess sisters arrived together. Tara and Lainie do a little bit of everything. Sometimes dancers, sometimes actresses. Once they were librarians, but that is a subject they will only discuss if heavily intoxicated.”

“Are we going to discuss whatever it is you are here to discuss instead of dancing around it?” he asks. “I was never a particularly good dancer.”

“I have read for countless people on innumerable subjects and the most difficult thing to understand within the cards is always the timing. I knew that, and still it surprised me. How long I was willing to wait for something that was only a possibility. I always thought it was just a matter of time but I was wrong.”

“He forgets that he was someone's dream once, himself.”

“He remembers when he was very small his mother once said she wished happiness and adventure for him. If this does not count as adventure, he is not sure what does.”

“Mr. Ethan W. Barris is an engineer and architect of somerenown, and the second of the guest to arrive. He looks as though he has wandered into the wrong building and would be more at home in an office or a bank with his timid manner and silver spectacles, his hair carefully combed to diguise the fact that it is beginning to thin. He met Chandresh only once before, at a symposium on ancient Greek architect. The dinner invitation came as a surprise; Mr. Barris is not the type of man who receives invitations to unsual late-night social functions, or usual social functions for that matter, but he deemed it too impolite to decline.”