“I am an artist first, a censor second.”

Markin starts the story by providing his primary identifiers, as if to justify what is to come in the rest of the story. By aligning himself with the identity of an artist, he relegates his political identity.

“Most censoring, of course, is done by publishers.”

To justify his actions, Markin minimizes his role in censoring images by shifting part of the cultural and societal blame to editors who also change words or revise the author’s original intent. As these words are in a short story collection, Marra seems to be breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader directly here.

“What you believe to be true is a small muscle that exerts its strength only inside your head.”

This is a response from one of Markin’s investigators to Markin’s insistence that he is innocent. The truth doesn’t matter, but rather what the powers that be deem to be in their best interest matters: truth is subjective. This quote develops the collection’s theme of “Truth, Deceit, and Betrayal.”