The walls of books around him, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters.

“...a thin woman about fifty with a face like a silver hatchet.”

“I like a little danger. Tame danger, controlled by me. It gives me a sense of p…”

“We're all in the game. We all drive cars, and we're all hooked on oil. The ques…”

“The walls were lined with books, many of them in foreign languages, like insula…”