The GPS unit became almost equally obstreperous, though, over Richard’s unauthorized route change, until they finally passed over some invisible cybernetic watershed between two possible ways of getting to their destination, and it changed its fickle little mind and began calmly telling him which way to proceed as if this had been its idea all along.

Coming up with lectures is a huge amount of work. I was willing to do one lecture for Gresham because I was honored to have been invited, but to create lectures for a class would probably require that I shut down everything else and concentrate on lectures for a couple of years. Then there would be many, many other skills that I'd have to learn, such as how to sit through a faculty meeting, how to deal with students, etc. It is really not in the cards for me. It's not who I am or what I do. I'm a novelist.

The sight of the bare katana inspires everyone to a practically Nipponese level of politeness

Jad said, "The leakage was forcing choices, the making of which in no way improved matters." Okay. So we were, in effect, locked in a room with a madman sorcerer. That clarified things a little.

How could your cover be blown in Canada? Why even bother going dark there? How could you tell?

Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?

Talent was not rare; the ability to survive having it was.