“I am an agnostic on most matters of faith, but on the subject of maps I have always been a true believer. It is on the map, therefore it is, and I am.”

“The past was a consumable, subject to the national preference for familiar products. And history, in America, is a dish best served plain. The first course could include a dollop of Italian in 1492, but not Spanish spice or French sauce or too much Indian corn. Nothing too filling or fancy ahead of the turkey and pumpkin pie, just the way Grandma used to cook it.”

“The first thing you notice, coming to Israel from the Arab world, is that you have left the most courteous region of the globe and entered the rudest. The difference is so profound that you're left wondering when the mutation in Semitic blood occurred, as though God parted the Red Sea and said: "Okay, you rude ones, keep wandering toward the Promised Land. The rest of you can stay here and rot in the desert, saying 'welcome, most welcome' and drowning each other in tea until the end of time.”

“There are people one knows and people one doesn't. One shouldn't cheapen the former by feigning intimacy with the latter.”

“Hardcore chicken!”

“We were raised Methodists,” Sue said. “But we converted to the Confederacy. There wasn’t time for both.” “War is hell,” Ed deadpanned. “And it just might send us there.”

“It is difficult to gaze in awe at the wonders of ancient Egypt with modern Egypt tugging so insistently at your sleeve.”