“What are your choices when someone puts a gun to your head?What are you talking about? You do what they say or they shoot you.WRONG. You take the gun, or you pull out a bigger one. Or, you call their bluff. Or, you do any one of a hundred and forty six other things.”

“Be sceptical, ask questions, demand proof. Demand evidence. Don't take anything for granted. But here's the thing: When you get proof, you need to accept the proof. And we're not that good at doing that.”

“He’s the kind of man who if you gave him a gun and told him he had two choices—“shoot one of your dogs or shoot yourself in the head”—he’d put the gun to his ear and pull the trigger.” “Hell, Jules, you’d do the same thing if someone did that to you and your goddamned cats,” Blake said in amusement. “No,” Julian murmured with a shake of his head. “No, there’s a third option. People like us, we’re third-option people. We take the gun, stuff it in the person’s mouth, and eliminate the problem. Walk off into the sunset with our kitty.”

“I know he's not stupid," Julian whispered in a stricken voice. "He's not...he's not one of us, just like you said. he's the kind of man who if you gave him a gun and two choices--shoot one of your dogs or shoot yourself in the head--he'd put the gun to his ear and pull the trigger.""Hell, Jules, you'd do the same thing if someone did that to your and your goddamned cats," Blake said in amusement. "No," Julian murmured with a shake of his head. "No there's a third option. People like us, we're third-option people. We take the gun, stuff it in the person's mouth, and eliminate the problem. Walk off into the sunset with our kitty.”

“You get to a point where you have one of two choices. You either put a gun to your head or you pray.”

“I'm sure that if woman laid out the rules- requirements- early on, and let her intended know that he could either rise up to those requirements, or just move on. A directive like that signals to a man that you are not a plaything-someone to be used and discarded. It tells him that what you have- your benefits- are special, and that you need time to get to know him and his ways to decide if he DESERVES them. The man who is willing to put in the time and meet the requirments is the one you want to stick around, because tthat guy is making a conscious decision that he, too, has no interest in playing games and will do what it takes to not only stay on the job, but also get promoted and be the proud beneficiary of your benefits. And you, in the meantime, win the ultimate prize of maintaing your dignity and self-esteem, and earning the respect of the man who recognized that you were worth the wait.”

“Newsflash: it's not the guy who determines whether you're a sports fisher or a keeper-it's you. (Don't hate the player, hate the game.) When a man approaches you you're the one with total control over the situation-whether he can talk to you, buy you a drink, dance with you, get your number, take you home, see you again, all of that. We certainly want these things from you; that's why we talked to you in the first place. But it's you who decides if you're going to give us any of the things we want, and how, exactly, we're going to get them. Where you stand in our eyes is dictated by YOUR control over the situation. Every word you say, every move you make, every signal you give to a man will help him determine whether he should try to play you, be straight with you, or move on to the next woman to do a little more sport fishing.”