You have a grim taste in miracles, my friend. - Michael F. Flynn

He could not live again in Paris. It had seemed better then only because he had been younger, and had not yet known contentment.

What the prisoner said made some sense. He could see how technological progress—and social change with it—was coupled with free trade and the free exchange of ideas. Yet, he wasn’t at all sure that it was necessarily a good thing. There was a lot to be said for stability and continuity.

Cigars were for talk; pipes for reflection.