Lisa Mason

“Prostitution has little to do with morality, and everything to do with poverty.”

“If women go into politics, they’ll wind up as bad as men.”

““My angel,” he says, cradling her.“I’m not an angel, Daniel.”“Yes, you are.”“No! I’m not an angel and I’m not a whore. I have intelligence and passion, strength and perseverance. I am capable of abstract thought, intellectual accomplishment, and artistic expression just like you, sir.”He ponders that as the brougham trots up Fifth Street to Market. “What shall I call you, then?”Zhu smiles. “You may call me a woman.””

“What is the value of a life when the world is burdened with twelve billion people?”

“What is destiny for any human being? What becomes of probabilities that collapse out of the timeline? Does destiny depend on who witnesses?”

“Cosmicists speak of the Great Good, equalizing humanity with all creatures and things. Does a cosmicist accept the death of a child as the same as—say—the destruction of a butterfly? Suppose it’s a rare butterfly and the child is one of twelve billion.”

“He uncorks the absinthe, pours three rounds.…“After the first glass you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. After the third, you see things as they really are, which is the most horrible thing in the world.””

“The future survives because people care. Live responsibly or die.”

““Boredom,” he says, “is the province of the unimaginative soul.””

“That’s what failure did to: run you out, plucked your bones, sucked you dry. It was revolting. A failed man is a loathsome thing.”

“When you finally cash it in    Out in Frisco;And you end this life of sin    Out in Frisco;They will gently toll a bell,Plant your carcass in a dell,There’s no need to go to hell,    You’re in Frisco.”

“By the time people could speak about mandatory population control in a rational way, it was too late.”

“Junk does that. Junk is a forge. You enter the fire and come out twisted.”

“Since they were little, wishing on the first star of the evening, they both understood this: the most exciting game in life is to invent yourself.”

“The girl with her face. A Devolved Entity Manifested from the Other Now? A demon that wants to off her? It’s like the rumors of concentration camps. So weird she can’t believe it, and so plausible she can’t afford to disbelieve it.”

“The technopolistic plutocracy will dump pollutants into the atmosphere for another century on the grounds that compliance with limits is too expensive.”

“I didn’t lie. I implied.”

““Acid,” says the guy with the eyes, “raises your powers of integration so that everything is important.”“Acid,” says Chiron, “lowers your powers of discrimination so that everything seems important.””

“She’s got space. Lots of space in her house. What about in her heart?”

“You are either the man in the white coat or you are the monkey. Susan sees herself as the monkey.”