"The thought was intolerable. Not new; just intolerable. Louis Wu saw how thoroughly Munich resembled Cairo and Resht...and San Francisco and Topeka and London and Amsterdam. The stores along the slidewalk sold the same products in all the cities of the world. Teh citizens who passed him tonight looked all alike, dressed all alike. Not Americans or Germans or Egyptians, but mere flatlanders." —Chapter 1, page 2

"She wore the puzzled look, that puzzled look, the one that meant he'd used proper Interworld words in a nonsense sequence. Whiplash of the heart? Killed somewhere? Louis sighed within himself." —Chapter 4, page 48

"What kinds of stress situations might they face? The puppeteers were good businessmen. The did not overpay. The Long Shot was a fee of unheard-of value. Louis had the chilly suspicion that they would earn it." —Chapter 5, page 61

"There was nothing Louis could have pointed to...