“He inclined his head ever so slightly, displaying with his bearing the supreme confidence, even arrogance, that is the sole providence of cats, dragons, and certain highborn women.”

“He watched the aperture of the young women's lovely face close ever so slightly and felt a pang in his heart.”

“It's not the innocence that made him so certain. It's the arrogance of his guilt.”

“Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.”

“slightly older men and women, they had professions and soft slacks with knife pleats and a certain ease of bearing and belonging, the package of attitudes and values known as lifestyle”

“In rare moments of self-doubt, Dexter had once worried that a lack of intellect might hold him back in life, but here was a job where confidence, energy, perhaps even a certain arrogance were all that mattered, all qualities that lay within his grasp.”