“Only love could pick a nested pair of steel Bramah locks.”

“Poor little librarians of the world, those girls, secretly lovely, their looks marred forever by the cruelty of a pair of big dark eyeglasses!”

“On this particular autumn night, only the prospect of another solitary evening lies before her. She will fry her chop and read herself to sleep, no doubt with a tale of wizardry and romance. Then, in dreams that strike even her as trite, Miss Dark will go adventuring in chain mail and silk. Tomorrow morning she will wake up alone, and do it all again. Poor Judy Dark! Poor little librarians of the world, those girls, secretly lovely, their looks marred forever by the cruelty of a pair of big black eyeglasses!”

“Bina and Landsman were twisted together, a braided pair of chromosomes with a mystery flaw. And now? Now each of them pretends not to see the other and looks away.Landsman looks away.”

“And then the man reminded Max, with a serious but suave and practiced air, that freedom was a debt that could be repaid only by purchasing the freedom of others.”

“She was a natural blonde, with delicate hands and feet, and in her youthful photographs one saw a girl with mocking eyes and a tragic smile, the course of whose life would conspire in time to transpose that pair of adjectives.”

“That was how troubles arrived, mourners rushing the bar at a wake. Though they came in funereal flocks, they could be dismissed only one at a time, and that was how she would have to proceed.”