“Almost everyone is overconfident--except the people who are depressed, and they tend to be realists.”

“As a general principle, people feel more responsible for their actions than they do for their inactions. If we are going to err at something, we would rather err by failing to act.”

“Life is a gift. If we don't live it well, we are being ungrateful. And we have to love the ones who journey with us." (A Nail Through the Heart)”

“She gave me the slow nod women use to indicate that they understand our pain, they admire the courage with which we handle it, and they're absolutely certain that it's all our fault.”

“The chuckle is a perfectly acceptable form of laughter.”

“I let one of the men rename me. A man gave me the name Rose – you didn’t know that, did you, Poke?…He said, this man, he said that Kwan was too hard to remember, even though it’s a good name and it means ‘spirit,’ and that the rose was the queen of flowers and I was the queen of Patpong.” She laughs, rough as a cough. “The queen of Patpong. A kingdom of whores and viruses. Death with a smile.”

“I don't fear the things that go 'bump' in the night. It's the things that go 'RRAAAAARGGH!' that bother me.”