“This is not the way these tales end," Calliope said firmly."This is not the way that things end when they get to be tales," Amatus said, "but since ours is not yet told, we cannot count on it. There were a hundred dead princes on the thorns outside Sleeping Beauty's castle, and I'm sure many of them were splendid fellows.”

“People who put principles before people are people who hate people. They don’t much care about how well it works, just about how right it is … they may even like it better if it inflicts enough pain.”

“... they only trusted the wisdom of people brighter and more worldly than themselves when it was expressed in the vocabulary and style of rural idiots. In his guise as Brazenydol, he had once had a contract with DARPA to teach a team of physicists the basic terminology of tractor pulls so that they could give an acceptable explanation of omniwavelength stealth to a Congressional committee that didn’t understand tractor pulls, either.”

“Mitt Romney's first interview with Zombie Reagan: Mitt Romney came in with cheerful assurance, because he wasn’t capable of anything else. “Let me first welcome you back to this side of the veil, Mr. President.”“Yeah, Mitt, it’s good to see you looking so well. Your father says hello, and he wanted me to add specially that whatever unfortunate negative things you might remember him saying to you when you were a kid, he always tried to tell you the truth and he hopes you’ve used it to improve, and he understands that even with the help of those comments, it might just not have been in you to improve. He wants you to remember he still loves you no matter what you’ve become, or even if you haven’t chosen to become any one thing in particular.”“That’s very kind. I miss my dad even now.”“Oh, so do I. I remember George as always that kind of guy, he had your back, whenever you’d think to watch your back, you’d find him somewhere around there, ready for action with that knife already drawn.”

“Where did you find construction guys swapping dirty jokes in proto-Númenorean?” Aura asked.“On construction sites. Is that coffee ready?”

“Of course you would, Mitt," Reagan said. "Well, I’m glad we understand each other, and I think your father would be proud of you being in his old spot, and I want you to know that when I’m choosing my Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, your resumé will be on the very top of the pile. It’s been great chatting with you but you know, I have to find a vice presidential candidate, and soon.”“Ha, ha, ha, ah it’s been great chatting with you, too, Mr. President, and—”Reagan cocked his head slightly, smiled, and caught the eye of a minion; a moment later Romney had been deposited outside the door like a discarded room service tray, having barely had time to shift from ha, ha, ha back to ah…ah…”

“This is not the way these tales end," Calliope said firmly."This is not the way that things end when they get to be tales," Amatus said, "but since ours is not yet told, we cannot count on it. There were a hundred dead princes on the thorns outside Sleeping Beauty's castle, and I'm sure many of them were splendid fellows.”

“Amatus waited a long time, but at last he broke the silence."There is much I don't unders”

“So we fell asleep holding hands. If married couples got to do this all the time, shit if I could understand how there were ever divorces, or even fights.”

“A prepared mind is always made up; it knows what it thinks and why it thinks that. When it's time to change, it just makes itself up a different way. A really made-up mind--made up properly, knowing what it knows and on what basis it knows it--is open. People close an undecided mind because they're trying to protect those sore uncertainties from getting bumped and scraped.”