[...] The last horse I'd been on had bitten me constantly. This one just thrust his head rhythmically at the future.

I wanted to know that I wouldn't die like a bug, I said.

Sorry, he said. These men died, were embalmed, and have been stolen. People sold them again and again. Their every effect, their bones, were traded for gold. You'll be no better off.

[...]

If these kings believed, why would they hide themselves in these plain boxes under these heavy stones?

Ah, but they didn't believe, he said.

[...] Why did he feel violated? He felt punched, robbed, raped. If a soldier was killed and mutilated in his own country, this man would not feel this kind of revulsion. He doesn't feel this way when he hears about trains colliding, or a family, in Missouri, drowning in their minivan in a December lake But this, in another part of the world, this soldier dragged from his car, this soldier alone, this dead unbloody body in the dust under the trck--why does it set the man on edge, why does it feel so personal? [...]

[...] Chuck insisted on ending the letter with "I trust that this matter will not present a problem." Every legal letter Chuck writes ends this way. He loses half of his cases.

My mouth dried and I pretended to keep smiling. Why do we pursue information that we know will never leave our heads? I was inviting a permanent, violent guest into my home. He would defecate on my bed. He would shred my clothes, light fires on the walls. I could see him walking up the driveway and I stood at the door, knowing that I'd be a fool to bring him inside. But still I opened the door.