“She raised her head again. "Aren't you supposed to come over all manly man and forbid the little lady from taking such risks with her fragile self?" "I like my balls right where they are," he said, and she laughed and put her head back down on his chest.Kate Shugak to Jim Chopin Though Not Dead”

“We need more bodies, 'cause it's not looking enough like the last scene in Hamlet already. --Chopper Jim Chopin”

“At the moment developing a nice little inoffensive cancer somewhere on dry land seemed infinitely preferable to what she was grimly convinced was soon to be her death by drowning way too far out at sea.”

“That's some f***ing doorman you've got there, Ms. Shugak.”

“Once in a while, I like to polish my halo by taking on a case pro bono.”

“Where were they from originally? The Seabolts?" "I don't know, Idaho, Oklahoma, Iowa. One of those red-neck states with vowels on both ends." "You mean like Alaska?”

“Over a third of the Newenhan population was under eighteen,which didn't make his job any easier, the hormonally challenged being terminally and all too often fatally prone to acts of stupidity.”