“The glacier knocks in the cupboard,The desert sighs in the bed,And the crack in the teacup opens A lane to the land of the dead.”

“This is all lie, she want to say to them. The dead are not hovering nearby to knock politely at teacups and tabletops and whisper through billowing curtains.”

“Centuries old, but recently widened, the highway was the same road used by pagan armies, pilgrims, peasants, donkey carts, nomads, wild horsemen out of the east, artillery, tanks, and ten-ton trucks. Its traffic gushed or trickled or dripped, according to the age and season. Once before, long ago, there had been six lanes and robot traffic. Then the traffic had stopped, the paving had cracked, and sparse grass grew in the cracks after an occasional rain. Dust had covered it. Desert dwellers had dug up its broken concrete for the building of hovels and barricades. Erosion made it a desert trail, crossing wilderness. But now there were six lanes and robot traffic, as before.”

“The patron gets comfortable in bed and opens up the book -- it opens tentatively -- and the patron bends the open book backward until there is a satisfying crack and the book is a little more supple, a little easier to read. The book spine has just been broken, and a broken spine means a more submissive book.”

“My destiny doomed me to be in this desert land. I will map it.”

“You stir up more hornets' nests than a twelve-year-old boy with a baseball bat. You‘re like Lois Lane on crack.”