In a city where most of the wealth is controlled by a small few, certain things are overlooked, particularly when it comes to the assertion of privil… - Ellen Kushner

Tell me about the city, then." The master shrugged. "It's crowded. It smells. There are lots of things to buy.

I thought I would be safe here."
"You are." For the first time, he touched her, touched her hand. "Safe from everything but paper and ink. Please. Put those down."
"Paper and ink." She clutched the books to her ample chest. "They're not nothing, Alec. They're pretty much everything to me: the embodiment of ideas, of thought—of free and open thought. Of inquiry and supposition. All of it."

"You founded the place. Why don't you want to go?"
"I don't like children," the duke replied.
"Then why put out all that money to preserve them?"
"Because it is wrong to let them die."