Harry Turtledove

You can have as much fun in a library as you can at the cinema, and it doesn’t cost you anything.

“Hoover is one of the best men we’ve ever had for getting things done,” David said, “and one of the worst for figuring out what to do.”

The Confederate States had been founded on the principle that change was a bad idea.

Maybe not thinking about the price of failure was what marked a hero. On the other hand, maybe it just marked a damn fool.

“You see?” he said. “You just wanted me to tell you I was wrong.”

“Well, of course,” Anne answered, and poked him in the ribs. “What else does a woman want to hear from a man?”

“How about, ‘I love you’? How about, ‘You’re beautiful’?” Potter suggested.

“Those are nice, too,” she agreed with a smile. “As far as I’m concerned, though, nothing’s better than, ‘You were right.’”

Like a lot of jailers, he was convinced the police who hunted down criminals couldn’t find a skunk if it was spraying their leg.

They eyed each other in perfect mutual incomprehension.

“God done made this happen. He kin make us come through it, too, so long as He take it in His mind He want to do dat.”

“Amen,” Athenaeus said. Scipio made himself nod. He didn’t want to seem out of place—seeming out of place was one of his greatest fears, because it was deadly dangerous. But if God had really wanted to do something about this disaster, couldn’t He have stopped it in the first place?

“They can’t say anything against the government, not in public they can’t.”

“Is it a country or a jail?” Carsten asked.

“Near as I can tell, sir,” the second yeoman said, “it’s a jail.”

Early summer in Nashville made a good practice ground for hell.

The only happy people she saw coming out of the place were a young couple, the man carrying a crying baby. Maternity wards are different, Nellie thought as she went past them. I bet they’re the only place in a hospital where people win instead of losing.

“Sir, don’t you think Utah is a special case?”

“Every case has partisans who insist it is special,” Hoover answered. “I recognize none of them. I believe none of them. The same principles must apply throughout the United States.”