“...he dreamed of being director of the FBI instead of attorney general. Considering some of the unsavory characters who had held the latter post, Milo didn't have the credentials for it.”

“That was interesting, riding in the trunk," Milo said, "but I wouldn't want to do it again.”

“He, too, had been glassed-in for a long time, by choice. Now and then he had lifted a hammer to shatter through to something, but he had never struck the blow because he didn't know what he wanted on the other side of the glass.”

“On those occasions when he had killed in the dark, he later needed to see his victims' faces because, in some unlit corner of his heart, he half expected to find his own face looking up at him, ice-white and dead-eyed. "Deep down," the dream-victim had said, "You know that you're already dead yourself, burnt out inside. You realize that you have far more in common with your victims after you've killed them than before.”

“Boo fell in at my side. He is the only ghost dog I have ever seen. Animals always move on. For some reason he had lingered more than a year at the abbey. Perhaps waiting for me.”

“He loved her as he had never loved another, and he trusted her as he had allowed himself to trust no one else. But by the nature of the world, those who loved and trusted were uniquely vulnerable”

“A body of work, therefore, reveals the intellectual and emotional progress of the writer, and is a map of his soul. It's both terrifying and liberating to consider this aspect of being a novelist.”