"Edward holds up a hand for silence. “If you please, Captain: he’s thinking. Let us savor the exquisite rarity of the moment."

“I had a productive day, without the distraction of conversation.”

“His nation of liberty was founded on the backs of Negro slaves and at the cost of exterminating the aborigines. As far as I can tell, the Yankee’s idea of freedom is his right to carry a pistol with which he may shoot strangers in the street.”

“How could millennia-old superbeings be so boring?”

“When you laugh at something, you don’t fear it anymore.”

“It didn’t matter that they were terrible at being parents; they were also very rich, which meant they could pay other people to love Alec.”

“You have to be pretty damned hot and thirsty to enjoy a soy-milk smoothie, but they were, so it was okay.”