"Often, when a stranger says, 'Trust me,' a wise man puts his hand on his purse and backs away." - Matt Hughes

Filidor was becoming more and more convinced that he had recently been inhabiting a reality that was at sharp variance to the rest of the world’s.

"Are you familiar with Wallader's theory that every society is fundamentally organized around one or another of the cardinal sins?"
"I believe not," I said.
"He argues that the true seed of every culture, whatever the ideals to which it gives lip service, always turns out to be one of the seven mortal iniquities identified by the ancients: pride, greed, and anger are the most common; lust, gluttony, and envy less so; those based on sloth usually do not last."

"Isn't it obvious?" he answered.
"No. It is so far from obvious that it has gone right through obscure, breezed past unfathomable and is now completely beyond the reach of my vocabulary."