You think you know what your life will be like thirty years from now and suddenly you’re doing something you couldn’t have planned five minutes ago. - Lisa Goldstein

“It would make a good tourist attraction,” Mitchell said.
Jara looked at him oddly, and for a moment he feared he’d said the wrong thing again. Then Jara laughed. “You Americans,” he said. “That is all you think about, your tourist attractions. You are the great spectators. The other countries of the world put on their shows for you, display their ruins, their pottery, their dances and religions. And you watch. You watch because your country has no past of its own. Is that right?”
Mitchell shrugged. He had never really given it much thought.
“But you are right,” Jara said. “It would make a good tourist attraction. That would be one way we could finance the excavation.”
Ah ha, Mitchell thought. You laugh at the Americans, but when you need money for something we’re the first people you think of.

I can't believe this," Mary said, whispering urgently. "Every time I talk to you I think I've heard the worst, and then you come along and say something even stupider.

Three of her children were in school. At some time the government had recorded that Mama had three children of school age, so every day Mama sent three different children off to school. The teachers never seemed to notice.