Every true heart needed a pragmatic counterweight, and every cynic an idealist to lift his spirits. - Neal Stephenson

Vitaly owns half a carton of Lucky Strikes, an electric guitar, and a hangover

Whenever serious and competent people need to get things done in the real world, all considerations of tradition and protocol fly out the window.

There was no one moment when they definitely crossed over into Ameristan. The closest thing to a formal ceremony was when Tom pulled over onto the gravel shoulder of a two-lane road between cornfields and yanked off the vehicles' license plates—which was evidently held on with magnets... Then the caravan was back on the road.
“When in Rome,” Julian said... About an hour out of Des Moines, they did pass by a tiny sign—Sharpie on plywood—bearing what might have been the burning-cross logo of the Levitican Church.