“Mickey Cray had been out of work ever since a dead iguana fell from a palm tree and hit him on the head.”

“Actually it was the mark of the stupid, which is what you get for sitting under a tree during a thunderstorm.”

“The evening news made her wonder if God was dead; the morning sun made her believe He wasn't.”

“Shreave flicked away the dead mosquito. "Don't these things carry the bird flu too?""No Boyd, that would be a bird.”

“Roy remembered the time he and his father had a talk about fighting. 'It's important to stand up for what's right,' Mr. Eberhardt had said, 'but sometimes there's a fine line between courage and stupidity.”

“The man's a born straggler, Honey thought, another lucky exception to the rules of natural selection. A million years ago he would've been an easy snack for a saber-toothed tiger.”

“From the pancake house I drive directly to the county morgue. The contrast is not especially striking.”