“And there on the piss-soaked cobbles, his back to the alley and his face to the wall, lay the object of their diplomatic mission: A sleeping drunk. Colt lay out his hand in a flourish. “Mr. Billings, may I introduce to you His Imperial Majesty Joshua Norton the First, Emperor of the United States of America and Protector of Mexico.”

“He lay on his chair with his hands clasped above his paunch not reading, or sleeping, but basking like a creature gorged with existence.”

“Whatever Jesus lays His hands upon, lives. If He lays is hands upon a marriage, it lives. If He is allowed to lay His hands on the family, it lives.”

“I didn’t break his jaw, but if he lays a hand on you, it will be the first of many things to break,” Patch said.”

“The Emperor decided to make a proclamation to his troops about the importance of compassion in the face of the rising tide of heinous fuckery and political weaselocity in the nearby kingdom of the United States.”

“The country was a dreamland; and perhaps it even reminded my wife's grandfather of the night he woke up drunk in his friend's house, beside his friend's wife, everything similar but new, different, better. The United States of America was like an eternity of those first disorientating seconds of not knowing and not wanting to.”