““Well," the Marsh King pursed his beak politely, "at any rate, your manliness need only last for a relatively brief period. I have already discussed this in detail with some of the lower Stars—white dwarfs and the like. I shall bundle you up tight as a mitten in a human skin until," and here he cleared his long blue throat dramatically, "the Virgin is devoured, the sea turns to gold, and the saints migrate west on the wings of henless eggs." "In the Stars' name, what does that mean?" I gasped. "I haven't the faintest idea! Isn't it marvelous? Oracles always have the best poetry! I only repeated what I was told—it is rather rude of you to expect magic, prophecy, and interpretation. That's asking quite a lot, even from a King.””
![“[S]ometimes, when you are a food person, the possible irrelevance of what you are doing doesn’t cross your mind until it’s too late. (Once, for example, when I was just starting out in the food business, I was hired by the caper people to develop a lot of recipes using capers, and it was weeks of…” quote by Nora Ephron](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/d79/nora-ephron-1217_business_s-ometimes-when-you-are-a-food-person-th_980.jpg)
