[Explorers, for the most part, had been of the Marco Polo school of writing:] Basically, you travel through the wilderness for a long time, then you come to a city, ... That's not very helpful or useful.

It is part of wisdom never to revisit a wilderness, for the more golden the lily, the more certain that someone has gilded it.

We expect hassles when we travel. It's our patriotic duty to grin if possible but bear it nonetheless as a contribution to the war against terrorism. We take off shoes without complaint and are no longer embarrassed when it's a hook on a bra that sets off the alarm.

When D's cabin caught fire, D was out of the country. Half the town-Christians and drinkers alike-came out to fight the fire and loot the cabin. There were individual piles of loot, and fights over the piles. "That's my pile." "The hell it is, it's mine.

If you have to ask that question, you wouldn't understand the answer.

They said no one would answer at the high school because they'd been evacuated to the middle school.