“I briefly considered bashing her to death with the soup ladle before reluctantly deciding that, as satisfying as that would be, it probably wasn't worth spending the next thirty years in prison. Instead I picked up the phone and went down the hall to my tiny toom, vindictively switching on every light as I went.”

“I've got a gig," Jim said.I sat up in my bed, wide-awake. A gig was good- I needed the money. "Half.""Third.""Half.""Thirty-five percent." Jim's voice hardened."Half."The phone went silent as my former Guild partner mulled it over. "Okay, forty."I hung up.(...)The phone rang. I let it ring twice before I picked it up."Fine." Jim's voice had a hint of a snarl in it. "Half.”

“Inside the house, I turned on the kitchen light, revealing the photographs stuck every which way all over the cabinets, and then switched on the hall light. In my head, I heard Beck say to my small nine-year-old self, 'Why do we need every light in the house on? Are you signaling to aliens?”

“For the first time in a long while I was in the mood to accomplish something. I switched off the TV and pulled out the Oriole epilepsy drug ads and spread them over my desk. Then I picked up my red pen and went to work.”

“Without turning on the light, I went to my bed and lay down, my arm thrown across the mattress, my hand aching because Grace wasn't underneath it”

“I went down again. My heart and I went down again. I was aware of her hand. I was aware of my breathing. I could no longer see it, but I was aware of her face.”