“I looked down at the little pink face in the bundle. A newborn. The child had been alive only minutes but was already considered a criminal by the Soviets.”

“I think that when Lady Tamarind looks at you, she feels as the cathedral might if it suddenly remembered that once it had been a grim little church facing down musket fire and a cruel sea wind.”

“Dionysus had already been scared form the tragic stage, by a demonic power speaking through Euripides. Even Euripides was, in a sense, only a mask: the deity that spoke through him was neither Dionysus nor Apollo, but an altogether newborn demon, called Socrates.”

“It is sobering to consider that when Mozart was my age he had already been dead for a year.”

“Her face was a grimace of surprised pain as she slid unconscious down the back of the tub and under the water. I held her under for several minutes after the blow, watching as the water went pink, then red, and finally crimson with blood.”

“Adults had the notion that juveniles needed to suffer. Only when they had suffered enough to wipe out most of their naturally joyous spirits and innocence were they staid enough to be considered mature. An adult was essentially a broken-down child.”