“...They went from regarding these compromises as regrettable to considering them necessary, then normal, then even desirable.”

“Deplorable practices adopted during the last century were repeatedly declared necessary if regrettable in order to win the war. Oddly enough, we've yet to win. You'd think somebody would have asked before this why the regrettable but necessary measures haven't actually produced the promised results.”

“Many of us have convinced ourselves that compromise is necessary to achieve our goals, that all of our goals are not attainable so we should eliminate the extraneous, prioritize our desires, and accept less than the moon.”

“People fear anyone who differs from what is considered normal, and in a small town the idea of normal can be as narrow as the streets.”

“I was always fascinated by people who are considered completely normal, because I find them the weirdest of all”

“I suppose it's not a compromise if only one of you considers it such, but that was what our compromises tended to look like. One of us was always angry.”