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Flames died. Virgil squirmed uneasily and opened his eyes. Violet green swallows set the air overhead atwitter with colorful, frenetic motion. And April Delaney still floated in the river with her eyes closed like a lazy, erotic trout.

— The Magic Journey by John Nichols (New Mexico Trilogy, #2)

All his life, Rodey McQueen had expected “something special to happen” as a result of his grand-scale finagling, his hotels and his ski valley, his motels and his banking interests and the Dynamite Shrine complex. But a mystical, magical rapport with his realized dreams had failed to materialize. Instead, the rhythms of his work grew more pressing, he felt a more urgent drive to expand, grow, accumulate. It had never been, and was not now, possible to stop, reflect, or really enjoy. The result was an insinuation of frantic feelings, even panic, into his daily labor. Yet McQueen had an honest longing for rest and retirement. He had a longing to cast his arms around a complete experience—his life’s work—and be able to judge it and enjoy it and inspect it much as he might judge and enjoy and inspect a fabulous painting. But he had chosen a métier which allowed no summing up. Capitalism had no limitations: Progress, American-style would sit still for no photographs: the Betterment of Chamisaville condoned no reflection in tranquility upon the meaning and origin of things.

— The Magic Journey by John Nichols (New Mexico Trilogy, #2)

A plague of public and private surveyors, demographers, and hydrologists infested the valley. They hailed form the Bureau of Reclamation, the Bureau of Land Management, the state engineer’s office, the Interstate Streams Commission, the Dynamite Shrine Miracle Development Corporation, the Mosquito Valley Ski Company, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Four Rivers Association, and the Albino Pine Defense Fund. Gardens were trampled, cows frightened while calving; horses bolted through fences, and cattle strayed. A hundred peeping toms were reported to the police, No Trespassing signs went up everywhere, angry shots were fired at the official strangers in puttees and knickers and pith helmets drawing imaginary lines through the locals’ sacred property. Pretty soon Virgil Leyba was defending dozens of penniless small farmers against manslaughter, assault and battery, aggravated injury, even a couple of murder charges, as farmers and ranchers defended their private property against the invasion of menacing officialdom bent on enslaving their land and their water rights in a merciless web of inefficient pork-barrel projects and unfair taxation. Stirred up, off-balance, the valley trembled and a hundred ghosts emerged from the uneasy, tingling woodwork. Despite the odds stacked in their favor, it wouldn’t be that easy, the Anglo Axis discovered, to encourage middle-class outsiders to come in and contend with the old ways of life.

— The Magic Journey by John Nichols (New Mexico Trilogy, #2)

Across the plaza, in Patrocinio Godoy y Godoy’s bucket of blood, the El Gaucho Bar, numerous less-than-upstanding locals had tied their horses to the hitching post outside and gathered to consume vast quantities of cheap beer and wine while awaiting the boardroom meeting’s outcome. Most notable among the boozers ensconced there was Jesus Dolores Martínez Vigil, a short, pudgy man of indeterminate old age sporting an old-fashioned greasy sombrero, a Villa moustache, and a heavy bulletproof vest made of thick hemp wrapped around his torso. Once the leader of an 1880s revolutionary outlaw group known as the Gorras Blancas, a contingent which had waged a guerrilla war against the cattle barons and government sharpies illegally taking over locally owned land grants, Jesus Etcetera was now pushing a hundred, or even more, nobody knew for certain. Some Chamisa Valley amateur historians, who claimed he had died years ago, actually suggested that the robust feisty little man who persisted in haunting the valley was merely Jesus Etcetera’s soul wandering through purgatory. Others believed that Jesus was very much alive and would one day spark a White Cap army renaissance that would banish all the outsiders, newcomers, thieves, cattle barons, land hustlers, and tourist hucksters like Rodey McQueen from the picturesque Midnight Mountain area once and for all.

— The Magic Journey by John Nichols (New Mexico Trilogy, #2)

Ah, h'druk g'har dWatch, Sh'rt'azs!' said Carrot. 'H'h Angua tConstable... Angua g'har, b'hk bargr'a Sh'rt'azs Kad'k... '

Angua appeared to concentrate. 'Grr'dukk d'buz-h'drak...' she managed.

Carrot laughed. 'You just said small delightful mining tool of a feminine nature !'

Cheery stared at Angua, who returned the stare blankly while mumbling, 'Well, dwarfish is difficult if you haven't eaten gravel all your life...'

— Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy (Narrator), and 1 other (Discworld, #19)

'Oh, well, if you prefer, I can recognize handwriting,' said the imp proudly. 'I'm quite advanced.'

Vimes pulled out his notebook and held it up. 'Like this?' he said.

The imp squinted for a moment. 'Yep,' it said. That's handwriting, sure enough. Curly bits, spiky bits, all joined together. Yep. Handwriting. I'd recognize it anywhere.'

'Aren't you supposed to tell me what it says?'

The imp looked wary. 'Says?' it said. 'It's supposed to make noises?'

— Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy (Narrator), and 1 other (Discworld, #19)