“As Anne watched her, she could not help thinking of the age-old question every woman asks herself at some time or other: do I have to swallow it?”

“She carried a knife inside of herself now, one that was always cutting her. She could feel it every time she swallowed, every time her thoughts strayed from the splendor of the wild.”

“Every woman should have a youth she's content to leave behind and a past juicy enough that she's looking forward to telling it in her old age”

“She had always told herself that she did hti job because she wanted to help others; afterall, hadn't Maurice told her once that the most important question any individual could ask was, "How might I serve?" If her response to that question had been pure, surely she would have coninued with the calling to be a nurse.... But that role hadn't been quite enough for her. She would have missed the excitement, the thrill when she embarked on the work of collecting clues to support a case.”

“A good boss asks what part she could have played in the problem. And then she asks herself what she can do better next time.”

“Anytime I hear about another one of us gone berserk, shooting up his ex’s office or drowning her kids to free herself up for her Internet boyfriend, the question I always ask is not, like every other tongue-clucking pundit in the country, how could this have happened? but why doesn't this happen every day?”