“It is possible, he thought, to be completely happy in marriage--though you must be willing to hold on when your ship was lost at sea and there was no guarantee of rescue.”

“We tell stories of other people's marriages, Detective Hastroll thought. We are experts in their parables and parabolas. Be can we tell the story of our own. If we could, Hastroll thought, there might be no murders. If we could, we might avoid our own cruelties and crimes.”

“Perhaps it's simply the dual nature of marriage, the proximity of violence and love.”

“He closed his eyes, shook his head. If he could get her alone somewhere, somewhere completely private, he'd kill her. He would break a rock over her head and split her skull open so that he could see, just for a second, what the fuck was in her mind.”

“The heart," he said, "is half criminal. The trick is to be vigilant. To keep your eyes open, so if you get a look at this side of yourself you can make a positive ID.”

“...in response to whatever Alice was struggling with, whatever had caused her to withdraw from him, he had chosen the arms of another woman instead of relying on his own fortitude, as if he'd somehow deserved more comfort than Alice herself had been able to give, or not. Which was part of marriage, after all, part of the vows: enduring those times. And this sense of entitlement seemed to him an even greater sin than infidelity.”

“The thoughts just before the event are like the fortune in the cookie. The fortune's as random as the thought.”