My physics teacher used to say Diogenes shouldn't have wasted his time looking for an honest man," Shirl said, "he should have been looking for someb… - Connie Willis

Barbie’s one of those fads whose popularity makes you lose all faith in the human race.

It is a temporal universal that people never appreciate their own time, especially transportation. Twentieth-Century contemps complained about cancelled flights and gasoline prices, Eighteenth-Century contemps complained about muddy roads and highwaymen. No doubt Professor Peddick’s Greeks complained about recalcitrant horses and chariot wheels falling off.

Everyone else had the look of tired patience people always got when listening to a sermon, no matter what the century.