“„Ohne Vergütungen, die weit über das eigentlich Angemessene hinausgehen, wäre der Beruf des Politikers viel zu unerfreulich.”

“[O]b dies das eigentliche Ende des Gefangenendilemmas sei: wenn Richter und Angeklagte sich in die Arme fielen, um gemeinsam über einen Repräsentanten der alten Ordnung zu spotten.”

“Humans needed water or they would die, but dirty water killed as surely as thirst. You had to boil it before you drank it. This culture around tea was a way of tiptoeing along the knife edge between those two ways of dying.”

“Well, once I had recovered from childbirth -" then she caught herself short, and smiled. "What a ridiculous expression; I see now that I shall be recovering until the day I die.”

“You have responsibilities, now, Bob. You must lose this naive understanding of violence! You are embarrassin' me in front of the lads! You can't play by their rules or they'll win unfailingly! You don't engage in courtly play-fightin' with one such as this. You get a great friggin' tree-branch and keep hittin' him with it until he dies.”

“As soon as you're sure you're right, there's no point in your being here.”

“I mean, who wants to be the fucking goddess of macrame?”