“The Dr. Nuts seemed only as an acid gurgling down into his intestine. He filled with gas, the sealed valve trapping it just as one pinches the mouth of a balloon. Great eructations rose from his throat and bounced upward toward the refuse-laden bowl of the milk glass chandelier. Once a person was asked to step into this brutal century, anything could happen. Everywhere there lurked pitfalls like Abelman, the insipid Crusaders for Moorish Dignity, the Mancuso cretin, Dorian Greene, newspaper reporters, stripteasers, birds, photography, juvenile delinquents, Nazi pornographers. And especially Myrna Minkoff. The musky minx must be dealt with. Somehow. Someday. She must pay. Whatever happened, he must attend to her even if the revenge took years and he had to stalk her through decades from one coffee shop to another, from one folksinging orgy to another, from subway train to pad to cotton field to demonstration. Ignatius invoked an elaborate Elizabethan curse upon Myrna and, rolling over, frantically abused the glove once more.”

“Once a person was asked to step into this brutal century, anything could happen”

“Between notes, he had contemplated means of destroying Myrna Minkoff but had reached no satisfactory conclusion. His most promising scheme had involved getting a book on munitions from the library, constructing a bomb, and mailing it in plain paper to Myrna. Then he remembered that his library card had been revoked.”

“Whatever pain meds Dr. Steve was taking for his shoulder, they must have been the strong ones. I mean the really strong ones, because he had gotten two of his shirt buttons in the wrong holes, spilled coffee all over his sling, and he was grinning like he was six years old and someone had just given him a puppy.”

“Instead of answering, Will took a step toward her, and all at once, everything happened too quickly to even make sense of it. One second he was standing three feet away from her, and in the next he had a hand on her hip and was pulling her close. Leaning in, he kissed her. His lips were soft soft, and he was suprisingly gentle. Maybe it was simply that he'd caught her by surprise, but even so, she found herself kissing him back. The kiss didn't last long, and it wasn't the kind of earthshaking, soul-destroying kiss common in movies these days; but even so, she was glad it happened, and for whatever reason, she realized it was exactly what she'd wanted him to do.”

“Rachel’s kiss reached inside him and twined around what passed for his soul. and when she took her mouth from his, she had it all. He knew he loved her with everything he was. Everything that he could be. There would never be another woman for him.And he could never tell her.”