“The cabbie's eyes sort of glazed over. Canada kills any conversation quick, I learned long ago. It's a little trick of mine.”

“Folks think a lifetime is a thing stretched out over years. It ain't. It can happen quick as a match in a dark room.”

“She laughed. I closed my eyes. It sounded damn mournful, that laugh of hers echoing off the square.”

“I guess mercy is a muscle like any other. You got to exercise it, or it just cramp right up.”

“It's like that, I guess, when the past come to collect what you owe.”

“There's all sorts of ways to live, Chip. Some of them you give a lot. Some of them you take a lot. Art, jazz, it was a kind of taking. You take from the audience, you take from yourself.”

“Tell me bout this caveman with the clam moustache been barkin speeches all over Germany.”