“I grunted. It's something I picked up over a fifteen-year career in law enforcement. Men have managed to create a complex and utterly impenetrable secret language consisting of monosyllabic sounds and partial words—and they are apparently too thick to realize it exists. Maybe they really are from Mars. I'd been able to learn a few Martian phrases over time, and one of the useful ones was the grunt that meant "I acknowledge that I've heard what you said; please continue.”

“Again Creb grunted. It was the usual noncommittal comment used by men when responding to a woman. It carried only enough meaning to indicate the woman had been understood, without acknowledging too much significance in what she said.”

“In the past few years, I have made a thrilling discovery ... that until one is over sixty, one can never really learn the secret of living. One can then begin to live, not simply with the intense part of oneself, but with one's entire being.”

“Hands on her shoulders, I noted. Fast, but not too fast or it's going to be over, fast. Keep your grunting to a minimum.”

“No further issues with Corinne Bishop or her kin in Detroit?”“Hunter didn’t seem to be concerned,” Gideon replied. “Said he had the situation under control.”Lucan grunted, wry despite the weight of the discussion previously under way. “Where’ve I heard that line before? Famous last words from more than one of us over the course of the past year and a half.”

“Right, I can't watch this shit." Kacey grunted as he got up. "It's one thing getting a hard-on over you, baby girl. The fact that Tyler happens to be in the picture…I'm freaking slightly.”