"“A god intervened, Captain Paran. Returned the life to you. You might think it was on your behalf, but I’m afraid there wasn’t any altruism involved. Are you following me?” “I’m being used,” Paran stated flatly. She raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t bother you?” Paran shrugged and turned away. “It’s nothing new,” he muttered."

"“An item,” he said softly, his eyes on the disc, “that passes without provenance, pursued by many who thirst for its cold kiss, on which life and all that lay within life is often gambled. Alone, a beggar’s crown. In great numbers, a king’s folly. Weighted with ruin, yet blood washes from it beneath the lightest rain, and to the next no hint of its cost. It is as it is, says Kruppe, worthless but for those who insist otherwise.”"

"You can give him a ukulele and he can make it sound like a Stradivarius."