“A small insect, clearly suffering from acute depression, decided that my open mouth was the ideal route for a suicide mission. With kamikaze-like determination, it rocketed down my throat and splattered against my tonsils. - Calma Harrison”

“You're learning. So why don't we stop pretending? It's so much easier when you give up all those illusions and realize that the only justice you'll get in this life is the justice you dish out. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, mate. You need to sharpen your teeth. Don't get angry. Get even.”

“I used to sit in front of my father's Jag, watching the raindrops run their kamikaze suicide missions from one edge of the windshield to the wiper blade.”

“They put on fresh gloves and got back to business. Jazz wiped up the blood splatters in the freezer and tossed the tissues in with Howie’s waste. It bothered him that he was leaving evidence behind without some sort of oxygenated bleach, those blood splatters would still show up under Luminol. Of course, the odds of anyone deciding to spray down the morgue freezer and switch on an ultraviolet light were pretty minimal, so it’s not like it was evidence that anyone would ever find or use. Still: Billy Dent’s First Commandment was “Thou shalt not leave evidence.”

“And the view was suddenly clear to me. The world opened out to its grim beyonds and I realized that, at forty, one must learn the rigors of acceptance. Capitalize it: Acceptance. I needed to accept what was put before me--be it a watery grave in Ireland's only natural fjord, or a return to the city and its grayer intensities, or a wordless exile in some steaming Cambodian swamp hole, or poems or no poems, or children or not, lovers or not, illness or otherwise, success or its absence. I would accept all that was put in my way, from here on through until I breathed my last.”

“On the heels of his words, the front window exploded. As if time slowed down, he watched the shards of glass scatter across the floor, luminous crystals dancing about the wooden slats of the floor like insects scurrying in choreographed retreat.”

“If I could only turn the etch-a-sketch of my life upside down.”