The Reserve Army division (whose general staff headquarters had been placed in Treblinka) was supposed to be preventing terrorists from joining up with their brethren in Poznan (to the north) or else from filtering through the southwestern Polish countryside towards the nearest spaceport around, located a few miles south of Warsaw. The Reserve Army, in the few weeks since Wroclaw had fallen under terrorist siege, had made several very important and surprising accomplishments: it had finally stopped favoring Germany and German interests; it had finally looked past the so-called 'Looney Triangle' of Hamburg, Bremen, and Berlin; it had finally considered the possibility that terrorists were being manipulated (or else directly controlled) by an agent or agents whose agendas had very little in common with terrorists' traditional goals of killing Americans and their allies - after all, what the hell were they doing on planet Earth? They had plenty of soft targets in outer space and especially in Earth's orbit - they were consciously neglecting them. That made no sense whatsoever. The Reserve Army finally deployed two divisions east. As an afterthought, one was sent down to Silesia, while the main contingent made a beeline to the capital. Thanks to them, Jesus found his way out.

– Verse 8 from the chapter called Bohemia

Some people gave themselves problems. Alcohol was the chief method. For many people, alcoholism was only a symptom. For others, it was what could only be described as a strange and tragically unnecessary life choice. In Treblinka, there was a couple nicknamed the model marriage. Every afternoon, they were seen stumbling hand in hand with wide smiles on their faces. They were drunk, having spent the entire morning walking around town, asking for spare change. "Thirty cents," the woman begged. "That's all I need: for bread." Meanwhile, the man always went to the soup kitchen at the convent. "And one for my wife," he would say, smiling. Then, he would take the soup outside and sell it to some slightly richer man for loose change. Afterwards, the woman went. "One for my husband, too," she would say, smiling. Then, she would sell some slightly richer woman some soup. After a while, the nuns got wise. They began insisting on eating in: no take-out. The model marriage moved elsewhere, having lost their primary source of income.

– Verse 345 from the chapter called Adolescence

My cousin Stalin was able to procure for us a record of all authorized shipments from the Czech Republic, especially those from Brno which had passed through the southwestern border since the terrorist insurgency in Germany. Meanwhile, Sapper was sent with a blank check to the diesel fuel station at the border - "the only diesel fuel station around for miles," according to his old friend Washington Dulles. Your father told him to buy everything: the whole station: the building, the record books, the fuel. Sapper got it all for a nice, little price. The owner almost blew his load out of gratitude.

– Verse 34 from the chapter called Security

After the spaceport was recaptured, terrorists appeared in the Polish city of Poznan, which lies east of Berlin and directly north of Treblinka and the city of Wroclaw. This development was not unexpected, but, considering recent developments, people wondered whether a connection might exist between the failed attempt at lift-off on the part of the captured Martian terrorist and the sudden eastward expansion of the continental terrorist war, possibly toward the nearest spaceport after Kummersdorf, located a few miles south of Warsaw, directly to the east of Poznan. If that were true, perhaps Wroclaw would be spared from terrorist attacks, people said. All the time, they talked about Zeus and the captured Martian terrorist: his failed attempt at lift-off.

– Verse 686 from the chapter called Adolescence

Your grandfather's actions were famous and had great consequence. Having set a milestone in the history of tort law, they marked a new era in political and legal history. Two years after Jesus's mother died, the government of France took the unprecedented step of admitting its own fault, not only for the terrible lives and health of its citizens, but also for the general atmospheric situation - many thought the move was a purely financial and political one, as the French government was in danger of losing its power and legitimacy, but that was beside the point: it was still a clear moral victory. That same year, many governments won lawsuits against a myriad of industrial giants. For the criminal and tortious acts of polluting the public weal so indiscriminately and mercilessly, those giants were forced to pay, first, sums of over three billion dollars, and then, eleven point three billion dollars, until finally, they were paying settlements of three hundred and sixty-eight point five billion dollars. Hallelujah! said the people. God bless the Law!

– Verse 64 from the chapter called Adolescence