“Only once in a generation does anything as fresh as a vomiting detective come along.”

“Please, don't torture me with cliches. If you're going to try to intimidate me, have the courtesy to go away for a while, acquire a better education, improve your vocabulary, and come back with some fresh metaphors.”

“In Monterey, at the small airport rental agency, he hired a vomit-green Ford Tempo. It was an offense to his refined sense of color. The Tempo's tempo was satisfyingly allegro on flat roads but a bit adagio on the hills.”

“Although he was a young and virile man at 37, he was not inexhaustible. In addition to food and drink, he had better lay in a couple thousand tablets of viagra. The drug would probably remain potent if he vacuum packed the pills in groups of 10 and kept them in a freezer. That would work unless civilization completely collapsed and power companies were unable to function. Fortunately, Jim had a propane-powered backup generator with half a dozen tanks of fuel already on hand. If Henry added to the propane supply, and he used the generator only for essential maintenance like keeping the viagra freezer operating in warm weather, he would be happy here on the farm for a looong, looong time. Unless, even now, dead Jim was out there in the generator shed sabotaging the machinery.”

“He is different, and there will be many people you love who will be unhappy with you. You don’t want them to feel you’ve dishonored them. Yes, I know how it is. But life is short. A chance for great happiness doesn’t come along all that often.”

“Ryan's parents, no less than Sam's, were of that portion of the post-war generation that rejected the responsibilities of tradition and embraced entitlement. Sometimes it seemed to him that he was the parent, that his mother and father were the children. Regardless of the consequences of their behavior and decisions, they would see no need for redemption. Giving them the chance to earn it would only offend them.”

“But of course we don't notice the descent until we're rocketing along at high velocity.”