You think you can be as heroic as he was, simply by dying. But he doesn’t take courage to die. That’s easy. It takes courage to live. - Lisa Goldstein

Layla’s story, though not always accurate, was far more interesting than the truth.

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.

“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.