“Vietnam is the dead albatross around Johnson's neck that may pull him down.”

“I had reached up and pulled the castle of dreams down around him.”

“The rope that pulls you from the flood can become a noose around your neck.”

“I lifted onto my toes, put my hands aroung his neck, and pulled him down. When our lips met, that first jolt… It was everything I hadn't felt with Simon, everything I wanted to feel.
His hands went around my waist, pulling me closer”

“A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it. It keeps him upright.”

“That girl will rain destruction down on you and your ship. She is an albatross, Captain.

Way I remember it, albatross was a ship's good luck, 'til some idiot killed it. (to Inara) Yes, I've read a poem. Try not to faint.”

“Johnson is dead. Let us go to the next best — there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson.”

“Ironically, the North Vietnamese victory could have come much sooner. In view of the increasing commitment of American troops in the mid- and late 1960s, General Giap would have been well advised to abandon the big-unit war, pull in his horns to take away the visible threat to South Vietnam's survival, and thereby delude the Americans that they had already achieved their goal of making the South Vietnamese self-sufficient. President Johnson had given Giap that chance at the Manila conference of 1966 when he had announced that once "the level of violence subsides," American and other foreign troops would withdraw within six months. That would have been eight years before the eventual South Vietnamese defeat, long before the South Vietnamese armed forces would have had any claim to self-sufficiency. Making that offer at the Manila conference may well have been an effort by President Johnson to rid himself of the albatross of South Vietnam, whatever the long-range consequences. For once the United States had pulled out under those circumstances and Giap had come back, what American President would have dared risk the political pitfalls involved in putting American troops back in?”

“… with the most infinite tenderness I have ever known in my life, he put his arms around me, gently, gently, and I embraced him around the neck, and we touched…”

“I love you,
A bushel and a peck,
A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.
Hug around the neck and a barrel and a heap,
Barrel and a heap and I'm talking in my sleep.”