“Getting into a fight with a popular senior. Pissing off a school teacher and the local chief of police. Hanging with two major-league losers." She slapped my back. "Welcome to high school.”

“Her voice was polished with a hint of a New England-boarding-school accent that shouted refinement over geographic locale. I was trying not to stare. She saw that and smiled a little. I don't want to sound like some kind of pervert because it wasn't like that. Femal beauty gets to me. I don't think I'm alone in that. It gets to me like a work of art gets to me. It gets to me like a Rembrandt or Michelangelo. It gets to me like night views of Paris or when the sun rises on the Grand Canyon or sets in the turquoise Arizona sky. My thoughts were not illicit. Ther were, I self-rationalized, rather artistic.”

“Because if you make me do that, I will make a stink that you'll never get off your shiny suits. I will sue the network. I will sue the studio. I will sue each one of you personally. I will send our beloved sponsors blogs that claim you' - she pointed to the white man and the black man - 'enjoy having monkey sex on the office furniture while she' - now she pointed to the Asian woman - 'likes to watch and spank herself. Is it true? Well, it will be in a blog. Several blogs, in fact. Then I'll go to other computers and add comments, stuff like Montague likes it rough or with toy or small farm animals. Get PETA on your ass. Then I'll send those blogs to your families. Do you get the drift?”

“The missing girl—there had been unceasing news reports, always flashing to that achingly ordinary school portrait of the vanished teen, you know the one, with the rainbow-swirl background, the girl's hair too straight, her smile too self-conscious, then a quick cut to the worried parents on the front lawn, microphones surrounding them, Mom silently tearful, Dad reading a statement with quivering lip—that girl, that missing girl had just walked past Edna Skylar.”

“I ordered a cheeseburger and a beer from a waitress who looked as though she wanted to be in one of those want-to-get-away? commercials. She called me hon. I love when a waitress calls me hon.”

“I'm not sure we should get camera phones, that's all."She hit the remote and the car doors unlocked. She reached for the door handle. Matt hesitated.Olivia looked at him."What?" he asked."If we both get camera phones," Olivia said, "I could send you nuddies when you're at work."Matt opened the door. "Verizon on Sprint?"from The Innocent”

“There should have been a dark whisper in the wind. Or maybe a deep chill in the bone. Something. An ethereal song only Elizabeth or I could hear. A tightness in the air. Some textbook premonition. There are misfortunes we almost expect in life—what happened to my parents, for example—and then there are other dark moments, moments of sudden violence that alter everything. There was my life before the tragedy. There is my life now. The two have very little in common.”