“Nell's husband has short-man syndrome. Eddie is one of those deadly dull people who is so upbeat that I suspect he would subconsciously like to go through the neighborhood, house by house, with a machine gun. He seems oblivious to the effect that his long, rambling monologues have on people - he doesn't notice the blank faces, the fingers flexing like those of people buried alive, the ocular tics. You could write down his words verbatim, show them to him, and he'd probably say, 'I know someone just like that!' Then he'd tell you about that person until your teeth hurt. His hostage-taking is passive-aggressive.”

“I know he's not stupid," Julian whispered in a stricken voice. "He's not...he's not one of us, just like you said. he's the kind of man who if you gave him a gun and two choices--shoot one of your dogs or shoot yourself in the head--he'd put the gun to his ear and pull the trigger.""Hell, Jules, you'd do the same thing if someone did that to your and your goddamned cats," Blake said in amusement. "No," Julian murmured with a shake of his head. "No there's a third option. People like us, we're third-option people. We take the gun, stuff it in the person's mouth, and eliminate the problem. Walk off into the sunset with our kitty.”

“The man sitting across from me at the cafe was thinking about murdering his wife. He imagined stabbing her and pretending like it was a robbery. Or perhaps, he thought, he'd take her hiking, push her off a cliff and say it was an accident; that she'd slipped. I wanted to tell him it wouldn't work, that in those CSI shows on T.V. they always suspected the husband first.”

“Someone's an easy grader.""Someone just has a soft spot where you are concerned." He was leaning down towards me and even though his face was a good foot away from me, I swear I felt those words like he'd whispered them into my ear.”

“I was glad to be rid of him. He was one of those people who could go to New York and be "fascinating," but here in his own world he was just a cheap functionary, and a dull one at that.”

“I might like to have someone courting me. But it would have to be someone who is a square shooter and who has a train load of courage. And it would have to be someone who doesn't have to talk down to folks to feel good, or to tell a person they are worthless ifthey just made a mistake. And he'd have to be not too thin. Why, I remember hugging [my brother] Ernest was like warpping your arms around a fence post,and I love Ernest, but I want a man who can hold me down in a wind. Maybe he'd have to be pretty stubborn. I don't have any use for a man that isn't stubborn. Likely a stubborn fellow will stay with you through thick and thin, and a spineless one will take off, or let his heart wander.”