“Martie came out of the office first, smiling prettily, and Dusty rose to greet her, smiling less prettily, and Dr. Ahriman entered the waiting room behind her, smiling paternally, and maybe Dusty smiled a little more prettily when he saw the psychiatrist, because the man virtually radiated competence and compassion and confidence and all sorts of good stuff. ”

“Grapes are juicy. Strawberries. Oranges. Good pork chops are succulent," said Dusty. "But the word isn't accurately descriptive of a person."Smiling with delight, Ahriman said, "Oh, really, not accurately descriptive? Be careful housepainter. Your genes are showing. What if I were a cannibal?”

“These days, all I ask of Fate is that the people she hurls into my life, whether they are evil or good, or morally bipolar, should be amusing to one degree or another...Most good people have a sense of humor. The problem is finding smile-inducing evil people, because the evil are mostly humorless.”

“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.”

“It isn't possible to smile too much, odd one.""Did you ever see the Joker in Batman?”

“As he entered her, as the piston of lovemaking grew slick with her clear oils, she thought about beingcrushed to death in his arms, and she - thought how odd it was for her to consider such a thing, and howmuch stranger still to consider it without fear and with something very like desire, a melancholy longing, acuriously pleasant anticipation, not a death wish but a sweet resignation,and she knew that Dr. Cauvelwould say this was a sign of her sickness, that now she was preparedto surrender even her ultimateresponsibility(the fundamental responsibility for her own life, for deciding whether or not she wasworthy of life), and he would say that she needed to rely more on herself and less on Max, but she didn'tcare, didn't care at all; she just felt the power, Max's power, and began to call his name, dug her fingersinto his unyielding muscle and surrenderedwillingly.”

“And the funny thing was if you made the best of it, if you smiled through every storm, the bad things were never as terrible as you expected them to be, and the good things were better than anything you could have wished for yourself.”