“He, Teddy and Eliza entered the room just as someone was snapping a picture: they would be forever captured in a photo they didn't belong in, blinking against the flash.”

“Jude's desire for girls was indiscriminate feverish and complete he wanted them all equally and he wanted them not at all. Blondes and brunettes big ones or small ones - they were cold fragile impenetrable creatures all desirable as they were undesirable all perfumed and pretty.”

“Kolchak nodded, 'Right, because that would make sense." He took off his hat and crumpled it against his hip. 'When I lived in Seattle, I met a man who had been killing people for a hundred years easily. I nearly got arrested painting on his portrait in the bank he owned, just to match his face to the hundred-year-old shot I had of him with a beard. It's possible.' 'Why didn't you just take a picture of the painting and scribble on the picture?' 'It was a gesture,' Kolchak wrung his hands, 'and anyway that's not the point.' ("Wet Dog of Galveston")”

“You didn't mind someone shutting out the world as long as they were happy to take you inside with them.”

“If God wanted humans to play chess, he would have made us black or white.”

“Quinn hesitated, then said what his heart demanded."Lizzy, even if you don't believe, I will still be your friend. Nothing is going to change that. I'm loyal to my friends for a lifetime. There are no qualifications."She just looked at him for a long time, and then the smile that could make his heart roll over appeared. She got to her feet and lightly tapped his arm with the sombrero. "You're forgiven for asking me out fourth."She would have passed him but he snagged her hand. "Lizzy."She stopped."I saved the best for last.”

“Archie Henderson has won no awards, written no books and never played any representative sport. He was an under-11 tournament-winning tennis player as a boy, but left the game when he discovered rugby where he was one of the worst flyhalves he can remember. This did not prevent him from having opinions on most things in sport.His moment of glory came in 1970 when he predicted—correctly as it turned out—that Griquas would beat the Blue Bulls (then still the meekly named Noord-Transvaal) in the Currie Cup final. It is something for which he has never been forgiven by the powers-that-be at Loftus. Archie has played cricket in South Africa and India and gave the bowling term military medium a new and more pacifist interpretation. His greatest ambition was to score a century on Llandudno beach before the tide came in.”