Countries are just like women. Sooner or later everyone loses their cherry and gets to be just another broad on the block. - Parke Godwin

Lengthy memos were always coming down from somewhere to be read, initialed and passed on. Never less than ten single-spaced pages, they boiled down to the need for efficiency and cutting paperwork.

But what's it mean," Roy cried, agonized. "What is it for?"
"Not for anything. It exists.

You must have been an evangelical."
"Tabernacle of the Born Again Savior," Charity owned with wistful pride. "Not that it helped a whole lot."
"Indeed." Jake sank again in his chair. "Tabernacle of the…the more shriveled the existence, the more elaborate the credentials. Virtue measured by what you wouldn't do, at least under scrutiny, and others judged for what they would and got caught at. You don't want Grace, Miss Stovall. You want to get even.