Every ruler wants to maintain the status quo. - Tim Powers

Processions of priests and religiosi have been for several days past praying for rain; but the gods are either angry, or nature is too powerful.

Banach recalled that one defector had stated, I didn’t abandon the USSR, the USSR abandoned me.
And he recalled the oath he had taken, with perfect sincerity, at the age of eighteen: I will always be ready to come to the defense of my homeland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics…
The what? he thought now. What was that you said? The Roman Empire, was it? The Persian Empire, the Hittites?

This is very pretty," said Elizalde...
"It's morbid," snapped Sullivan. "Burying a bunch of dead bodies, and putting a fancy marker over each one so the survivors will know where to go and cry. What if the markers got rearranged? You'd be weeping over some stranger. Not some stranger, even, some cast-off dead body of a stranger, like a pile of fingernail clippings or old shoes, or the dust from inside an electric razor. What's the difference between coming out here to think about dead Uncle Irving, and thinking about him in your own living room? Okay, here you can sit on the grass and be only six feet above his inert old body. Would it be better if you could dig a hole, and sit only one foot above it?" He was shaking. "Everybody should be cremated, and the ashes should be tossed in the sea with no fanfare at all."
"It's a sign of respect," said Elizalde angrily. "And it's a real, tangible link. Think of the Shroud of Turin! Where would we be if they had cremated Jesus?"
"I don't know—we'd have the Ashtray of Turin.