“You wouldn't have won if we'd beaten you.”

“Once upon a time, the white man's God, also known as One Who Wins You as a Prize, had beaten everyone and won everything. He even beat One You Gather Everything Fore and won as a prize the earth, its people, the heavens, and all that they contained. ”

“Wish you were with him?'Volfier frowned sideways. 'I wish we'd won at Ospria, then the choice wouldn't have come up. But then I wish my wife hadn't fucked the baker while I was away in the Union on campaign three years ago. Wishing don't change nothing.'Shivers grinned, and tapped at his metal eye with a fingernail. 'That there is a fact.”

“If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten.”

“Anything you shun will have won.”

“No, there wouldn't be," Holden said. "It'd be entirely different." Sally looked at him; he had contradicted her so quietly. "It wouldn't be the same at all. We'd have to go downstairs in elevators with suitcases and stuff. We'd have to call up everyone and tell 'em goodbye and send 'em postcards. And I'd have to work at my father's and ride in Madison Avenue buses and read newspapers. We'd have to go to the Seventy-second Street all the time and see newsreels. Newsreels! There's always a dumb horse race and some dame breaking a bottle over a ship. You don't see what I mean at all." "Maybe I don't. Maybe you don't, either," Sally said. Holden stood up, with his skates swung over one shoulder. "You give me a royal pain," he announced quite dispassionately.”