Chris Pavone

“You talking about computer weaknesses?""Yes. But also human weaknesses.""Meaning what?""Meaning the types of weaknesses that make humans let down their guard. Trust people they shouldn't trust.""You're talking about manipulating people.""Yes." Dexter and Lester were staring at each other. "I guess I am.”

“She was picking a fight because it was Thanksgiving, and she was not thankful.”

“Because she'd once made a horrible decision that would haunt her forever, and because the one person in the world she'd trusted without reservation was lying to her.”

“But all people have secrets. Part of being human is having secrets, and being curious about other people's secrets. Dirty fetishes and debilitating fascinations and shameful defeats and ill-begotten triumphs, humiliating selfishness and repulsive inhumanity. The horrible things that people have thought and done, the lowest points in their lives.”

“She understood that he had to work, and he had to travel. But what he didn't have to do was be absent even when he was present.”

“The embarrassment that you weren't independent, your decisions not your own to make.”

“This was globalization: everyone everywhere was interchangeable. You could be anyone anywhere to do anything.”

“This was a bizarre moment: this crossing-over from a hypothetical plan to a concrete caper, giving in to what may turn out to be an utterly outlandish idea, possibly letting go of some important tether to sanity. Deciding yes: I will do this. But not deciding it 100 percent, because that wold be admitting too much to herself, about herself, that she didn't want to admit. But deciding it 95 percent, enough to take the possibly outlandish action, but not enough to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that this wasn't just a goof, a lark, but an actual non-insane plan.”

“Once you see some things, you can never forget them. If you don't want to have to see them for the rest of your life, it's better not to look in the first place.”

“You go about your business, as far away from these lines as possible, pretending they're not there. So when you eventually find yourself at one of these lines, your toe inching over, it's not only shocking and horrifying, it's banal. Because you've always been aware the lines were there, where you were trying with all your might not to see them, knowing that sooner or later you would.”

“The second impediment was that she didn't want to acknowledge that part of her impetus to Internet stalking was a long habit of trusting no one. A habit whose genesis was the self-knowledge that she herself was untrustworthy.”

“Grudges," she said, "are timeless.”

“They were ticking off items on a to-do list that was magnet-attached to the fridge. There were nineteen items on the list. They'd crossed off fifteen. The final item was underlined: Make a life.”

“Even if they'd known that an attack had just been struck by one of their parents, they'd also have known that it wasn't their battle.”

“But she was still operating on lonely-person principles, still worried that her happiness could be wrenched away at any moment, for reasons out of her control.”

“The new man was again staring at her, staring at him, challenging her, knowing that she was considering him, wanting her to know that he was considering her. She couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to be with a man who absolutely didn't need her, but merely wanted her.”

“She spent so much of her new life wanting to get a break from the kids, then the rest of her time impatient to get back to them.”

“So my sister, she slipped through the cracks of the disaster of our family. She became her own disaster.”

“So she forgave him. And instead she berated herself for her suspicion, for her snooping. For the things she promised herself she wouldn't do, the feelings she wouldn't have.”

“Plus she had to admit that a small part of her secrecy was that she was holding something back, for herself. If she never told Dexter the truth, she was still reserving the right to return to her old life. To one day be a covert operative again. To be a person who could keep the largest secrets from everyone, including her husband, forever.”

“And everyone's in the same situation, basically: we're all finding our separate ways, together.”

“She began to sacrifice that old identity to live in her new one. It was the new life, after all, that everyone wanted.”

“She was seduced by the romance of it; she was energized by the possibilities.”

“She was not in a position to complain about this life, not yet. Probably not ever.”

“People who were too outgoing made her suspicious. She couldn't help but presume that all the loud noise was created to hide quiet lies.”

“She needed friends, and a life, and this is how you acquired those things: by talking to strangers. Everyone was a stranger, all on equal footing in strangerhood.”

“Things always end more suddenly than expected.”

“It's impossible to know which parts of the woman, if any, were real.”

“That was the secret to maintaining lies: not trying to hide them.”

“You're going to make a lot of money? In Luxembourg?""Yes.""How?""They have a shortage of great-looking men. So they're going to pay me a bucket-load for being incredibly handsome and staggeringly sexy.”

“It hasn't taken long to find herself thinking that people are watching. And that they always have been, all the time. It was only a few months ago that Kate had finally been able to imagine she was living a totally surveillance-free life.”

“This woman is American, but she speaks with no regional accent. She could be from anywhere. She could be anyone.”

“The best hiding spots are not the most hidden; they're merely the least searched.”

“On the semi-frozen river below, a duck quacked insistently, sounding like a grumpy old man agruing with a cashier.”

“It was impossible to understand how brief it is. It seemed like youth would last so long; it would last forever. But it's just a blink.”

“Travel wasn't fun if you didn't get to see or do what you wanted; it was merely a different type of work, in a different place.”