Americans made a lot of fuss about “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” but most of them definitely preferred a certain kind of immigrant: the kind with no accent. And gratitude. Plenty of gratitude.

It hadn’t been a crime, for god’s sake. It hadn’t even been unique. Half of Berlin flirted pink in those days; Marxism had been fashionable. “A lot of it was pretentious idiots quoting Lenin and talking about the proletariat while waiting for someone else to pick up the check,” Reka said. “But it was also a lot of young people who thought maybe the

The ingrained fear of the refugee, which never quite disappeared—the feeling that you might be asked to show your papers, to justify yourself, to leave

Why did she have to become nurturing, sweet, nice, just because she was now old? Wasn’t being old hard enough without having to dredge up a saintly smile

“Your mother says that to justify the fact that she isn’t being fair to you,” Mrs. Grace said calmly. “Which is mostly what people mean when they say ‘life isn’t fair.’ It isn’t, which is why people should endeavor to be more fair to one another, not less.”

“Stick around awhile is all I ask.” He came closer, slipped his arms around her waist. “Talk is cheap, so let me show you I am what I say I am.”

Bea liked men, they tended to like her, and that was a long way from being a tramp, regardless of what people like Mrs. Nilsson thought.

“Foundations of law like the ones you prize; who are they laid by? Men who aren’t afraid to bloody their knuckles or hurl tea in harbors. Now, this nation of ours decided to lay aside a violent beginning—in some ways, at least—and try to ground our future in something more rational . . . But that doesn’t mean violent men didn’t kick off the

Men weren’t to be trusted, but once you knew that, you had only yourself to blame if things went wrong.