[Henry Rios, with Kevin Reilly] "Sometimes I can't believe what people do to each other." "Believe it," he said. "There's nothing that hasn't been do… - Michael Nava

[Grant Hancock, with Henry Rios] "As for me, when I die I'll direct my family to bury me without fanfare." I smiled. "When you die, Grant, the tailors and barbers will declare a day of national mourning."

In a pluralist society, people act according to their own views of right and wrong, except where their actions violate agreed-upon criminal codes. This moral diversity is precisely what the religious right objects to; rather than seek to persuade nonbelievers of its version of the truth, it would simply impose that version on them. Religion enjoys freedom, not a licence to interfere with other people's freedom. The religious right's complaint that Christian values have been left out of public discourse reveals either a basic misunderstanding of our constitutional system or an equally basic disregard for its principles and workings. Religious-based values are not banned from the public arena, but they are not vested with any greater moral force than competing viewpoints, nor are they exempt from rational examination simply because they originate in someone's notion of the divine. The religious origin of opinion does not, in our system, give the opinion any special status in public debate. In a contest between individual freedom and particular religious views, individual freedom must be preferred because it and its corollary, equal protection of the laws, are what the American constitutional system holds sacred. Scriptural views are not exempt from dispute and have no special status within our constitutional framework.

[Her elderly mother, to Alicia] "Except in the novels of the Brontës, marriage is a barter. You make the best bargain you can before I die."