Простые смертные

You only value something if you know it'll end.

What is born must one day die. So says the contract of life, yes?

— Sweetheart, you'll be astounded by what you can live with.

Oh, rum, sodomy, and the lash: Mount Vomit is ready to erupt; let us now kneel before the Lord of the Gastric Spasm and all pay homage...

I consider how you don't get to choose whom you're attracted to, you only get to wonder about it retrospectively.

"How many times have I told you?" says Dad. "It's not—"
"What you know but who you know," says Nigel. "Nine thousand, six hundred, and eight, including just now."

The paintings on the long walls were gifts to Xi Lo or Horokai from the artists: a blushing desert dawn by Georgia O'Keeffe, A. Y. Jackson's view of Port Radium, Diego Quispe Tito's Sunset Over the Bridge of San Luis Rey, and Faith Nulander's Hooker and John in Marble Cemetery. At one end is Agnolo Bronzino's Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time.