“Switters was actually quite fond of Seattle's weather, and not merely because of it's ambivalence. He liked it's subtle, muted qualities and the landscape that those qualities encouraged if not engendered: vistas that seemed to have been sketched with a sumi brush dipped in quicksilver and green tea. It was fresh, it was clean, it was gently primal, and mystically suggestive.”

“And beauty has a quality all of its own that seems supreme; that seems above mere men with slaving ships and pistols...”

“Of a new-era’d nation that looked out for Uno, of a one-time World Policeman that was now going to retire and have its blue uniform deep-dry-cleaned and placed in storage in triple-thick plastic dry-cleaning bags and hang up its cuffs to spend some quality domestic time raking its lawn and cleaning its refrigerator and dandling its freshly bathed kids on its neatly pressed mufti-pants’ knee.”

“Owing to the fact he was a mute they were able to give him all the qualities they wanted him to have.”

“A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten.”

“The quality of a play is the quality of its ideas.”