“His glare could melt a polar bear's testicles.”

“After all, a society with such an enlightened tolerance of corruption and savagery needed to bear down hard on minor offenses to convince itself that it still had standards.”

“You know who used to scare me when I was a little kid? Snuggle the Bear.""Do I know Snuggle?""In those TV ads for that fabric softener. Somebody would say how soft their robe was or their towels, and Snuggle the teddy bear would be hiding behind a pillow or creeping around under a chair, giggling.""He was just happy that people were pleased.""No, it was maniacal little giggle. And his eyes were glazed. And how did he get in all those houses to hide and giggle?""You're saying Snuggle should've been charged with B and E?""Absolutely. Most of the time when he giggled, he covered his mouth with one paw. I always thought he didn't want you to see his teeth.""Snuggle had bad teeth?" she asked."I figured they were rows of tiny vicious fangs he was hiding. When I was maybe four or five, I used to have nightmares where I'd be in bed with a teddy bear, and it was Snuggle, and he was trying to chew open my jugular and suck the lifeblood out of me."She said, "So much about you suddenly makes more sense than it ever did before.""Maybe if we aren't cops someday, we can open a toy shop.""Can we run a toy shop and have guns?""I don't see why not," he said.”

“Either the gates of hell had opened, or Tom had lost his mind; for there could be nothing like this entity outside the precincts of the damned, except in the fevered fantasies of a raving paranoid psychopath”

“Give the narrative a lighter tone than you think it deserves, dear boy, lighter than you can bear to give it because you won't find the truth of life in morbidity, only in hope”

“She blinked, sat up, and saw Chris in the bathroom doorway. He'd just gotten out the shower. His hair was damp, and he was dressed only in his briefs. The sight of his thin, boyish body - all ribs and elbows and knees - pulled at her heart, for he looked so innocent and vulnerable. He was so small and fragile that she wondered how she could ever protect him, and renewed fear rose in her.”

“The retriever took each bit of meat from his master's hand with a delicacy almost equal to that of a hummingbird sipping sugar water from a garden feeder, and when it was all gone, he gazed up at Dusty with an adoration that could not have been much less than the love with which the angels regard God.”