Quotes from Stepan Chapman

None of them seriously believed the stories they told themselves about themselves.

Nothing had been decided, but everything was solved. Nothing had been repaired, but everything was fixed. Nothing had been cured. Yet everything was healed.

I wondered about the masterminds who were directing all the mayhem. Did they really hope to survive? Or was I missing the point? Did they intend, instead, to incinerate themselves and all of us with them? Like mummified pharaohs and their entombed slaves. Why do that? Maybe just to prove that they owned the world. After all, you don't own something unless you can destroy it.

Iron turns red when it corrodes, and copper turns green. Meat turns to maggots, and thoughts turn to speech.

An angelfish priestess in anemone drag sat on a post and wished that she were a conch man.

If the sailor in his sling were to turn and look down on her, he'd know she was a whore by the tentacles.