-Miracles had become relative common-places since the advent of
-entheogens; it now took very unusual circumstances to attract public
-attention to sightings of supernatural entities. The latest miracle
-had raised the ante on the supernatural: the Virgin Mary had
-manifested herself to two children, a dog, and a Public Telepresence
-Point.
- -- Bruce Sterling, _Holy Fire_ p228
-%
-Junkies were all knitted together in a loose global macrame, the
-intercontinental freemasonry of narcotics.
- -- Bruce Sterling, _Holy Fire_ p257
-%
-America was far better suited to be the World's Movie Star. The
-world's tequila-addled pro-league bowler. The world's acerbic bi-polar
-stand-up comedian. Anything but a somber and tedious nation of
-socially responsible centurions.
- -- Bruce Sterling, _Distraction_ p122
-%
-The attackers hadn't simply robbed the bank. They had carried off
-everything portable, including the security cameras, the carpets, the
-chairs, and the light and plumbing fixtures. The conspirators had
-deliberately punished the bank, for reasons best known to themselves,
-or to their unknown controllers. They had superglued doors and
-shattered windows, severed power and communications cables, poured
-stinking toxins into the wallspaces, and concreted all of the sinks
-and drains. In eight minutes, sixty people had ruined the building so
-thoroughly that it had to be condemned and later demolished.
- -- Bruce Sterling, _Distraction_ p4
-%