Robert Liparulo

“To you, death does not simply end life. It steals away the sunsets you'll never see, the children you'll never hold, the wife you'll never love. It's frightening to almost lose your future, and it's heartbreaking to witness death snuff out other people's tomorrows.”

“If we didn't have strong feelings, how could we love or fight? When our flesh is cut, we bleed. When our heart is broken, we cry. There's nothing wrong with that. It only becomes a problem when it gets in the way of what you have to do. You can't crumble when others are counting on you.”

“Live to fight another day was an expression that did not take nto account the loved one who would die because you didn't continue fighting today.”

“Knowledge was like candy: you never turned it down, especially if you didn't have to work too hard to get it.”

“Bravery is not the absence of fear but the forging ahead despite being afraid”

“Little boy and little girl.I don't know how old. Sweetest family in the world, of you listen to the old folks around here." Xander was stunned. "And nobody knows what happened to them?""Some say they high-tailed it to Europe." She raised her eyebrows at him. "Most believe he took them somewhere and killed them. Then took his own life." Dad forced a smile. "Just old rumors," he said.”

“Xander could sense more than David's smile. He wished he could be more like that, easygoing. But then, David hadn't seen what Xander had seen.”

“I don't know...just a feeling, like in..." Xander thought for a moment. "Star Wars. You know, when Han Solo says, 'I've got a bad feeling about this'?”

“David!" Xander yelled, because he had to yell something. His eyes snapped back to the figure in the upstairs doorway, but it was gone. "What do you want?" David asked."I...were you just upstairs?""I haven't looked up there yet." "But I just saw you up there.”

“He stepped fully into the house. The air inside was cool on his skin. He turned, expecting the front door to close on its own. But it stayed open, as it was supposed to. He shook his head, chiding himself for letting an old house spook him. He walked into the kitchen. Behind him, the front door slammed shut.”

“Tendrils of mist slithered over the forest floor, around the base of trees. Xander noticed that some of it had climbed the porch pillars and drifted, almost invisibly, over the shingles of the porch roof. It reminded him of an old TV series Dean's dad had bought on DVD: Dark Shadows. It was about a creepy old house and a vampire who lived there. Barnabas, Xander remembered.”

“Oh, Ed!" Mom exclaimed. "It's a Victorian.”

“The road simply ended. No cul-de-sac. No sign like the ones they had seen before: "Private Property. No Trespassing." Or "No Motorized Vehicles Beyond This Point." Just road...then trees.”

“If I guess your secret, will you tell me if I'm right?" His father laughed but didn't answer.”

“Definitely not a Gertrude.”

“Xander let the full extent of his misery show on his face for his mother. She gave his knee a shake, sharing his misery. She was good that way. "Give it some time," she whispered. "You'll make new friends and find new things to do. Wait and see.”

“Nothing but trees.”

“Donnelley was lifting his shirt away from the torn flesh in his side. He was cranked around, trying to assess the damage in the muck-spotted mirror. To Vero, he looked like an expressionist painting in which all the objects were the same color of too-vivid red: the shirt, the hands holding the shirt, the belt bassing through pant loops. At the center of it all was the thing that corrupted its surroundings with its own gruesome color - a wound.”

“A dingy emblem on the door depicted a little boy peeing into a pot. The rest of the bar was equally drab and tasteless. Dim bulbs behind red-tasseled lamp shades barely illuminated each of a dozen maroon vinyl booths, which marched along one wall toward the murky front windows. Chipped Formica tables anchored the booths in place. Opposite the row of booths was a long, scarred wooden bar with uncomfortable-looking stools. Behind the bar, sitting on glass shelves in front of a cloudy mirror, were endless rows of bottles, each looking as forlorn as the folks for whom they waited.He caught the strong odors of liquor and tobacco smoke, and the weaker scents of cleaning chemicals and vomit. In one of the booths , two heads bobbed with the movement of mug-clenching fists. A scrawny bartender with droopy eyelids picked his teeth with a swizzle stick and chatted quietly with a woman seated at the bar. Otherwise the bar was empty.”

“He loved his job, which allowed time to do it without comparing his performance to others'. He loved the economics of death: hastening a person's passage into the afterlife not only provided him with a good living: it gave work to coroners, beat cops, detectives, crime scene technicians, the people who made fingerprint powder and luminal and other sundry chemicals and devices - not to mention firearm, ammunition, coffin, and tissue manufacturers - obituary writers, crime reporters, novelists.”

“Hope is a merciless tormentor. It's the sound of trickling water to parched lips. The prospect of love to the unlovable. A miracle cure to the parents of a dying child. It holds up victory over the inevitable and beckons us to crawl further over slicing shards, all the while pulling back, remaining just out of reach. It makes agony out of mere pain by pretending a different outcome could have been. It laughs at mankind's embrace of it after millennia of disappointment.”