"Mexico city is a terminal of space-time travel, a waiting room where you grab a quick drink while you wait for your train. That is why I can stand to be in Mexico City for your train. That is why I can stand to be in Mexico City or New York. You are not struck; by the fact of being there at all, you are traveling. But in Panama, crossroads of the world, you are exactly so much aging tissue. You have to make arrangements with Pan Am or the Dutch Line for removal of your body. Otherwise, it would stay there and rot in muggy heat, under a galvanized iron roof."

"e shall barter our sovereignty as a free, independent nation or accept the decisions of a World Court as a super-nation to manage our affairs… While we sympathize with the Serbian or the Russian, with…"

"The man who started with the notion that the world owed him a living would once more find, as he does now, that the world pays him its debt in the state prison."

"Before 1997, some people were publicly claiming that they would be put behind bars , or not be allowed to return if they left. Some people even feared that certain books or magazines would not be read…"

"How different everyone looked. How louldly they talked about who was starting work tomorrow, who would start in a week, while Sister Raymond sat at her desk looking serene. Bird felt a lurch in her ch…"