“Vamps who are dying, or think they are, give a piercing, eardrum-bursting shriek, like the love child of a screech owl and a mountain lion on crystal meth, amplified like a seventies rock band.”

“It looked to me like a vamp version of a pissing contest. Men will be boys.”

“Chicken, yeah, that's me. I'd rather fight an old rogue-vamp in my underwear, with my bare hands, than deal with relationship problems.”

“Yeah. You treat him like a son or a soldier, instead of like a brother. He wants you to like him and admire him and love him. Maybe in that order.”

“The bluff on which Natchez sat was huge, and the road zigged and zagged and curled and twisted and dropped— like something Dr. Seuss might have imagined in a book titled The Cat in the Hat Drinks Blood.”

“I would give,” he said, his voice rough, “everything I am to keep you from being hurt.”

“Men who had the capacity to apologize—and who knew the right words with which to do it—were few and far between.”