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1) "In a labyrinth constructed out of a rosebush in the Golden Mile neighborhood of Montreal, two little girls were standing back‑to‑back with pistols pointed up toward their chins. They began to count out loud together, taking fifteen paces each."

2) "The house in the Golden Mile was their ticket to security and prosperity. Mr. and Mrs. Arnett were both determined to use their address to climb to the top of the social ladder. Mr. Arnett was a politician known for his zealous advocacy of moral decency. He repeatedly requested that prostitutes and houses of ill repute be closed down. The minute he criticized a play, it extended its run, knowing full well the publicity would bring people out in droves. His address loaned him an air of respectability. The illusion of wealth was what had kept his career afloat. The Arnetts often thought of selling it because they needed the money. But they knew if they did sell it, they would no longer have the status of living in the Golden Mile."

3) "Sadie took a notebook out of her basket and scribbled a thought down with a fountain pen. Marie was overcome by a desire to know what Sadie had written. What was it like to have a thought so interesting it belonged in a notebook? She didn’t know whether she had thoughts like that. She felt that she didn’t leave a thought in her head long enough for it to be organized, thoughtful, and worth recording."

4) "Marie was immediately smitten by the manner in which Sadie complained about things. Sadie analyzed everything. She found everything wanting. Her distaste for the world around her caused her to visualize and desire more. Marie had never realized how intelligent being negative made you."

5) "Before she had met Sadie, she had always been the best girl her age at whatever she did. But now there was someone else their age who was very good at things. While this was fascinating and attractive, she found it stirred odd and ugly emotions in herself. It planted the seed of jealousy in her. And that seed began to grow and it bore thoughts that were like tendrils. Every decent friendship comes with a drop of hatred. But that hatred is like honey in the tea. It makes it addictive."

6) "She would be a different person after this. She knew what she was capable of. That was perhaps a definition of innocence: not knowing what one was capable of."

7) "There was never a moment of peace and quiet in the city. It was always in the middle of building itself."

8) "She closed her eyes and absorbed the violence that was spoken from one lover to another."

9) "She had so many so many fingers at her disposal now. She had been so right to give away one. Look how many she had in exchange. She could do anything with them. She could pick locks, she could slit throats, she could light fires. With enough fingers, she could pull a building to the ground."

10) "Outside, the snow was falling down in Montreal in a way that it never did anywhere else in the world. It was coming down so thick. Its snowflakes were made out of fur. They were in a snow globe that had been shaken wildly and then put back on the shelf ever so gently and allowed to rest. The roses were dreaming underneath the ground."

1) "Back in the real world, Pony didn't have a clue what his startup's business model would be. The rough idea was that they would create a product that combines the pager and the then-nascent internet. Pony reconnected with two other classmates: Chen Yidan, who was working at the Shenzhen quarantine bureau, and Xu Chenye, who was part of the telecommunications bureau. They had one big problem: none of them knew anything about sales. Enter Jason Zeng Liqing. Unlike the initial founding quartet of self-proclaimed nerds, Jason was an outgoing, articulate and towering presence. A cadre at the Shenzhen telecommunications bureau, he once convinced a local property developer to invest 1.2 million yuan in building the first walled-off compound in the country to be entirely covered by broadband. The five clicked, and Jason took on responsibility for sales. Pony would take charge of product and strategy. That division of duties between the founders, and Jason's own dominant personality, planted the seeds of a rift that would eventually see Jason marginalised. Pony registered a startup for 500,000 yuan, equivalent to sixty-two years of the average Chinese wage at the time. His dad helped him file for the company name. After trying out three that were already taken, he requested the moniker Teng Xun - the first character alluding to part of Pony's Chinese name (Ma Huateng), the second meaning speed and information. In English, the name Tencent paid homage to Lucent Technologies. Because both Pony and Zhang Zhidong hadn't officially resigned at the time, they put Pony's mother down as owner - for about a year, the Chairman of Tencent was his mum, Huang Huiqing."

2) "How times have changed. Nowhere was that transformation more evident than in the capital of Beijing itself. That national psyche is reflected in the speed of change the capital constantly undergoes. Every few months, it's stippled with a new skyscraper, subway station, night club or luxury residential complex with names like Palm Springs or Park Avenue. In a city where the pollution can be so thick with particles that the act of breathing is akin to eating air, the willow-flanked streets spewing catkins in spring are bulldozed every few months and reborn with monikers like Innovation Street. The landlocked city still shrouds you in the scent of sulphur dioxide and coal the moment you step off the plane. For those passing through, it presages coughs and rhinitis; some would joke 'ten years off your health.' But to me it's always the scent of home - burning stubble in the wheat fields outside the Fourth Ring Road, where the Olympic Bird's Nest Stadium now stands; kebab stalls tucked in the hutongs around the iconic Drum Tower, fanned by grizzled migrants with pastel-hued blow-dryers; whiffs of petrichor washing away the humidity after the first autumn rain; and tobacco-choked night clubs near the Worker's Stadium, where Lamborghinis moonlight as Uber rides to pick up girls. One of my foreign friends calls it 'the developing economy scent.' To me, in an ironic way, it's the scent of hope and ambition."

3) "In late November 2013, Pony brought up a concept known as Internet+ that would be elevated by the government to a national strategic level within two years. The idea was you could topple and revolutionise any industry if you linked it with the internet. Link the web with retail and you get e-commerce, with entertainment and you get online gaming, But there could be a lot more sectors that could be transformed, such as transportation, logistics, manufacturing and - most immediately - neighbourhood services."

4) "In early 2012, Wang and Cheng saw a smartphone app called Momo, a Tinder-like dating app that allowed people to identify the location of other users on an online map. Wang says that the notion of tracking attractive females on phones piqued their interest in the enormous potential of a smartphone's GPS capabilities."

5) "'The most important thing is to drive yourself to a state of despair, and then God will open a window for you. So up till today, we think that money is just one element of resources, but it is never the most important. There will always be someone who is richer than you. The most important thing is your persistence,' said Cheng."

6) "Wang says Didi contemplated expanding into the US. Instead, in September 2015, it invested $100 million in Uber's American rival, Lyft. According to Wang, it was less about undermining Uber than about gaining negotiating leverage. 'The purpose of them grabbing a lock of our hair and us grabbing their beard isn't really to kill the other person, he says. 'Everyone is just trying to win a right to negotiate in the future.'"

7) "The metaverse, in its simplest terms, is embodied by the world depicted in Stephen Spielberg's Ready Player One, where people live and play in an immersive virtual reality. It's a place where they're free to parachute off Mount Everest, ascend the Great Pyramids of Giza, race against King Kong across New York in a sports car. It's a place where people could spend the better part of their day at work, presiding over meetings with hundreds of others, even (eventually) feel another person's grip via special suits with sensors that can physically manifest their online avatars actions in the real world."

8) "Pony's conundrum is how to propel Tencent into the future while appeasing his political masters - an incredibly delicate manoeuvre with unimaginable stakes. Given the extraordinary achievements of the past two decades, some may argue Pony is duty-bound to try. Who better than the visionary founder of the world's largest online entertainment empire to square that circle, to fashion a formula that will work for a fifth of the global population? And so the billionaire might not be bowing out anytime soon. Perhaps it's not even up to him. For the Party, it would be much easier to have one mighty all-knowing yet obedient company to rule all than play whack-a-mole with potentially disruptive forces."

1) "Traditional names went against the government's assimilation objectives; the government feared that leaving Indigenous people with their traditional names would take away their motivation to assimilate. Traditionally, Indians had neither a Christian name nor a surname. They had hereditary names, spirit names, family names, clan names, animal names, or nicknames. Hereditary names, in some cultures, are considered intangible wealth and carry great responsibility and certain rights. Hereditary names have been described as being analogous to royal titles such as Duke of Edinburgh. In many cultures, the birth name was just for that one stage of life, and additional names were given to mark milestones, acts of bravery, or feats of strength. None of the great heritage, symbolism, or tradition associated with names was recorded, recognized, or respected during the renaming process."

2) "In order to obtain a permit to pass, Indians would occasionally have to travel many days by foot to the Indian agent's house, not knowing if he would be there when they arrived. If the agent was away, they would either have to camp and wait, or return home. The pass system was also a means of maintaining a separation between Indians and the European farmers, which seems illogical considering the government's goal of assimilation—it's hard to achieve assimilation if the target population is isolated on reserves. The pass system restricted Indians' access to local towns in order to prevent Indian farmers from wasting their time when they should be tending their crops, which they were restricted from selling. The pass system additionally supported the government's attempts to quash potlatches, the Sun Dance, and other cultural practices."

3) "The right to vote, which most Canadians take for granted, was a hard-fought battle for Indigenous Peoples. In most parts of Canada, Indians were offered the right to vote at the time of Confederation—but only if they gave up their treaty rights and Indian status. Understandably, few were willing to do this. Métis people were not excluded from voting as few were covered by treaties and there was nothing to justify disqualifying them. Inuit were excluded from voting and no steps were taken to grant them the right to vote as most communities were geographically isolated. In the absence of special efforts to enable them to vote, the Inuit had no means of exercising the right."

4) "Indigenous self-government is often referred to as an 'inherent' right that pre-existed long before European settlement. For this reason, some Indigenous Peoples balk at the concept of Canadian governments granting them self-government, because they believe the Creator gave them the responsibilities of self-government and that that right has never been surrendered; it was simply taken by government legislation. In this light, self-government does not have to be recognized by federal or provincial governments because the right continues to exist."

1) "The first astrologer I met—later there were to be many others—was introduced to me early in 1943 by Sefton Delmer, who was by far the most imaginative and skilful exponent of 'black' psychological warfare techniques that I encountered during close on four years' employment at the Political Warfare Executive. There were two sides to the department's output: BBC broadcasts to Germany and enemy-occupied Europe, also leaflets bearing the imprint of H. M. Government and dropped by the Royal Air Force, were all 'white'. 'Black' operations, however, never indicated their British origin. Various 'black' broadcasting stations skilfully gave the impression that they were being operated inside Germany, and great pains were taken to ensure that 'black' printed matter looked as if it had actually been produced there. 'Black' material was not delivered to Germany in bulk by the RAF but was conveyed by underground channels, hence in relatively small quantities."

2) "[While] both astrology and those who practise it continue to puzzle me, I believe that the symbolism they use, but so rarely appear to understand, has a certain objective beauty, even logic. The possible meaning of the symbols, in their ever-varying combinations, can sometimes be sensed in the course of a subjective, incommunicable experience. The magic spell is broken the moment one tries to translate everything into ordinary, everyday words. Hence my theory that astrology would be fine without the astrologers."

3) "During the final decade of his long professional career Morrison-Zadkiel was little in the public eye. The 1862 almanac was the last in which Zadkiel advertised his willingness to accept professional work and Samuel Smith made his final appearance in 1863 when Zadkiel stated that 'all letters or applications on any subject whatever' were to be sent to his alter ego at Brompton post office. In the 1870 almanac, which was published in the autumn of 1869, he failed to predict the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, but announced the existence of The Most Ancient Order of the Suastika, or Brotherhood of the Mystic Cross. The subscription for an 'Apprentice Brother' was a modest 10s. 6d. Not to be outdone, Mr Sparkes, who edited the rival Raphael almanac, advertised The Society of the Most Ancient Magi, 'instituted for the especial purpose of advocating astrology in its purity, and for the spreading of Occult Knowledge'."

4) "A surprisingly large number of Germans, including many well-educated men and women, began to study astrology in the early 1920s. The reason for this sudden preoccupation with a hitherto unfashionable, even mildly disreputable area, is not difficult to discover. The aftermath of military defeat, with all its problems and uncertainties, including a runaway currency inflation which was only brought under control at the end of 1923, persuaded many to look to 'the stars' for information and portents of better times to come. Before 1914 the comparatively few German astrologers were mostly Theosophists or occultists or both. They regarded astrology as an essentially Hermetic science. However, a large proportion of the newcomers were interested in neither Theosophy, its offspring Anthroposophy, nor traditional occultism, and preferred to think of astrology as a science in its own right which, given time and the breakdown of traditional prejudices, would be widely accepted as such."

5) "While serving on the Russian front during the 1914-18 war Witte attempted to predict the times of Russian artillery barrages on the basis of a careful astrological record of previous ones. Given this or that combination of cosmic factors, then the Russian guns might be expected to open fire at a given moment. That, at least, was the theory. Witte, however, was puzzled by the fact that Russian shells frequently exploded in the Russian lines when, pace the stars, they should have remained silent. Intrigued by this illogical state of affairs, he sought for an answer. Eureka, it was found. These inexplicable manifestations could only be due to the influence of a planet or planets, as yet unidentified, beyond the orbit of Neptune. This deduction led to the 'discovery' of a hypothetical planet which was subsequently named Cupido. Later he and his friend Friedrich Sieggrün found seven more Transneptunian bodies which they called, in the order of their presumed distance from the Sun, Hades, Zeus, Kronos, Apollon, Admetos, Vulkanus and Poseidon. The next task was to calculate ephemerides so astrologers could incorporate these hypothetical planets in horoscopes. I have no idea how this was done."

6) "Others who met Krafft much later also recalled his gnomelike appearance. Countess Keyserling wrote in English: 'He was a queer little fellow, looked like a gnome; very pale and with burning black eyes; rather decadent like many Swiss people whose ancestors lived in a valley and inbred a lot... There was some flame burning in him, but a cold fire, like one of those dancing lights one reads about in books, which lead people astray in a swamp.'"

7) "Very little is known about the early stages of Krafft's ambitious plan, but its broad outlines can be deduced from his correspondence and publications. He sensibly decided to ignore the old astrological Tradition, with its mass of vague and often conflicting statements, and hoped to discover whether the objective statistical analysis of the factors in a large number of horoscopes would produce any data that was outside the law of mathematical probability. The presence of such data would not necessarily prove the validity of the Tradition but, he supposed, would at least indicate the existence of astral 'phenomena' as yet unknown to orthodox scientists. Hence it was not his purpose to establish, for example, that Moon in Libra in the sixth House means this or that but, rather, to identify unexpected angular frequencies or equally unexpected groupings of planets in any small sector of the 360° of the ecliptic between 0° Aries and 29° Pisces."

8) "Krafft claimed to have discovered correlations between cosmic cycles or periodicities, e.g. the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction (19.83 years), and economic fluctuations or crises. He had made a particular study of William Beveridge's 'Wheat Prices and Rain Fall in Western Europe' (in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society), and H. L. Moore's Generating Economic Cycles, New York, 1923. Both these researchers had identified economic cycles but had not associated them with cosmic phenomena. Krafft felt sure that the latter must be present and made two large-scale investigations covering German wheat prices, 1800-1930, and American railway share prices, 1831-1932. All manner of previously unsuspected related planetary periodicities and sub-periodicities were found. In fact, Krafft being the man he was, it would have been surprising if he had not discovered them."

9) [Questionnaire from the Reichssicherheitshauptamt] "11. Should members of different races (Aryans, Jews, Chinese and Negroes) — born at the same place under identical constellations expect the same astrological interpretations? If yes, then do you not admit the racial requirements of fate?"

10) "Copies of two papers alleged to have been written by Krafft at this time were in Herr Goerner's possession when I saw him. He told me that he had taken them with him when he was eventually released in April 1943. They are of interest for two reasons. Firstly, apart from a curious circumstance in connection with the horoscope of General Sir Claude Auchinleck, they represent such futile examples of short essays or background notes obviously written for psychological warfare purposes, that one can only wonder at the stupidity of the people who used Kraft's services for this purpose. Secondly, if Krafft was really responsible for these productions, he either had his tongue in his cheek or actually believed in his own nonsense."

11) "It was probably Krafft's realisation that his sole function was to provide astrological fodder for processing by hacks in the Propaganda Ministry that contributed as much as anything else to his subsequent nervous breakdown, for when he first arrived at the Muratti building he had supposed that he had something important to contribute to the German war effort. Symptoms of a kind familiar to psychiatrists now developed: he who had always been so tallkative and willing to communicate became increasingly withdrawn and silent."

1) "The Hard Switch is coming. This is the name people have given to the point when alcanite runs out. The once commonplace mineral that enables inter-system jump navigation. When the last piece has gone, the vast, diverse and scattered inhabitants of the galaxy will be stuck wherever they are. Some will have the means to choose this. Others will take what they've got. Or at least the best they can get."

2) "'Welcome! Oh, what's this? A pet?' 'Don't... touch... the glass.' Hhhrrrkkk...! 'I'm an engineer.'"

3) "'Hallsman.' 'Fuck! You scared me. This is a very alarmist way to deliver my payment.'"

4) "'They increased the size of the landing disc to take mega-freight, in a bid to get as much mineral off-planet before The Switch. People here are working overtime to make as much out of it as possible before it all shuts down. Makes no sense though, when all planets are isolated again, economies will become localised and no one has any idea what the Standard will be worth here by then. But no one is thinking long term, everyone believes they have a plan to get off-world before the bridges go down. They think they're unique in that too. But in reality the maths doesn't work. How about you?' 'Ah, don't worry about us. We've got a plan.' 'Haha. Of course.'"

5) "'Brace yourselves, this won't be graceful.'"

1) "From across the woods, as if by common accord, birds left their trees and darted upward. I joined them, flew among them, they did not recognize me as something apart from them, and I was happy, so happy, because for the first time in years, and forevermore, I had not killed, and never would."

2) "We left home, married, had children of our own, found the seeds of meanness blooming also within us."

3) "Oh, God, what a beautiful world! The autumn colors, that glinting river, that lead-colored cloud pointing down like a rounded arrow at that half-remodeled McDonald's standing above I-90 like a castle."

4) "Yeah, right. Like any of that was happening. Like he was racing back. They'd see through him. They'd fry his ass. People were always seeing through him and frying his ass. When he'd stolen Kirk Desner's flip-downs, the kids on the team had seen through him and fried his ass. The time he'd cheated on Syl, Syl had seen through him, broken off their engagement, and cheated on him with Charles, which had fried his ass possibly worse than any single other ass frying he'd ever had, in a life that, it recently seemed, was simply a series of escalating ass fries."

5) "So goodnight to all future generations. Please know I was a person like you, I too breathed air and tensed legs while trying to sleep and, when writing with pencil, sometimes brought pencil to nose to smell."

6) "I took me to the Banks of the River, and tarried there awhile, as the lowering Sun made one with the Water, giving generously of Itself & its Divers Colors, in a Splay of Magnificence that preceded a most wonderful Silence."

7) "Yes, Suzanne said. We also have a pool. You should come over this summer. It's cool if you swim with your shirt on. And also, yes to there being something to us. You are by far the most insightful boy in our class. Even when I take into consideration the boys I knew in Montreal, I am just like: No one can compare."

1) "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men."

2) "There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought. Nanny entered this infinity of conscious pain again on her old knees. Towards morning she muttered, 'Lawd, you know mah heart. Ah done de best Ah could do. De rest is left to you.' She scuffled up from her knees and fell heavily across the bed. A month later she was dead. So Janie waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time. But when the pollen again gilded the sun and sifted down on the world she began to stand around the gate and expect things. What things? She didn't know exactly. Her breath was gusty and short. She knew things that nobody had ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. She often spoke to falling seeds and said, 'Ah hope you fall on soft ground,' because she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed. She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making. The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman."

3) "The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back inside the bedroom again. So she put something in there to represent the spirit like a Virgin Mary image in a church. The bed was no longer a daisy-field for her and Joe to play in. It was a place where she went and laid down when she was sleepy and tired. She wasn't petal-open anymore with him. She was twenty-four and seven years married when she knew. She found that out one day when he slapped her face in the kitchen. It happened over one of those dinners that chasten all women sometimes. They plan and they fix and they do, and then some kitchen-dwelling fiend slips a scorchy, soggy, tasteless mess into their pots and pans. Janie was a good cook, and Joe had looked forward to his dinner as a refuge from other things. So when the bread didn't rise, and the fish wasn't quite done at the bone, and the rice was scorched, he slapped Janie until she had a ringing sound in her ears and told her about her brains before he stalked on back to the store. Janie stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought. She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over. In a way she turned her back upon the image where it lay and looked further. She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be. She found that she had a host of thoughts she had never expressed to him, and numerous emotions she had never let Jody know about. Things packed up and put away in parts of her heart where he could never find them. She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them."

4) "She didn't read books so she didn't know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop. Man attempting to climb to painless heights from his dung hill. Then one day she sat and watched the shadow of herself going about tending store and prostrating itself before Jody, while all the time she herself sat under a shady tree with the wind blowing through her hair and her clothes. Somebody near about making summertime out of lonesomeness."

5) "She got up to stir around and see if she could find him, and found herself too worn out to do much. All she found out was that she was too old a vessel for new wine."

6) "All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood."

7) "In a little wind-lull, Tea Cake touched Janie and said, 'Ah reckon you wish now you had of stayed in yo' big house 'way from such as dis, don't yuh?' 'Naw.' 'Naw?' 'Yeah, naw. People don't die till dey time come nohow, don't keer where you at. Ah'm wid mah husband in uh storm, dat's all.' 'Thanky, Ma'am. But 'sposing you wuz tuh die, now. You wouldn't git mad at me for draggin' yuh heah?' 'Naw. We been tuhgether round two years. If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don't keer if you die at dusk. It's so many people never seen de light at all. Ah wuz fumblin' round and God opened de door.' He dropped to the floor and put his head in her lap. 'Well then, Janie, you meant whut you didn't say, 'cause Ah never knowed you wuz so satisfied wid me lak dat. Ah kinda thought—' The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God."

8) "'Ah know all dem sitters-and-talkers gointuh worry they guts into fiddle strings till dey find out whut we been talkin' 'bout. Dat's all right, Pheoby, tell 'em. Dey gointuh make 'miration 'cause mah love didn't work lak they love, if dey ever had any. Then you must tell 'em dat love ain't somethin' lak uh grindstone dat's de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore.'"