“Not unlike the toaster, I control darkness.”

“Ooo ahe-e, I aya oa a," she said in yawnspeak, a language - not unlike Hawaiian - known for its paucity of consonants.”

“They are between. Not what they used to be, and not what they have become. In those times, they are nothing. And I am invisible, and I am nothing too. That is the true demimonde, Lucien, and the secret is, it is not always desperate and dark. Sometimes it is just nothing. No burden of potential or regret. There are worse things than being nothing, my friend.”

“It was a machine-gun orgasm, dark chocolate, spring water in the desert, a hallelujah chorus and the cavelry coming to the rescue all at once.”

“One of them hissed-not the hiss of a cat, a long, steady tone-more like the hiss of air escaping the rubber raft that is all that lies between you and a dark sea full of sharks, the hiss of your life leaking out at the seams. ”

“Mr. Fresh looked up. "The book says if we don't do our jobs everything could go dark, become like the Underworld. I don't know what the Underworld is like, Mr. Asher, but I've caught some of the road show from there a couple of times, and I'm not interested in finding out. How 'bout you?""Maybe it's Oakland," Charlie said."What's Oakland?""The Underworld.""Oakland is not the Underworld!""The Tenderloin?" Charlie suggested.”

“I'm beginning to wonder," said Kent, sitting down now on an overturned wooden tub. "Who do I serve? Why am I here?"You are here, because, in the expanding ethical ambiguity of our situation, you are steadfast in your righteousness. It is to you, our banished friend, that we all turn—a light amid the dark dealings of family and politics. You are the moral backbone on which the rest of us hang our bloody bits. Without you we are merely wiggly masses of desire writhing in our own devious bile."Really?" asked the old knight.Aye," said I.I'm not sure I want to keep company with you lot, then.”