“Talking of the local Sheriff, Jake Valentine, tall and skinny and his wife Myra, "She was a short woman, maybe five feet tall in her socks, the top of her head not quite reaching Jake's chest. What she lacked in height she made up for in girth. Jeffrey guessed she was at least a hundred pounds overweight. Standing side by side, the Valentines looked like the living embodiment of the number ten.”

“Considering what Pauline's been through . . ." Will began, then stopped himself. "She's not very nice.""She's a cold-blooded bitch.""I'm surprised I haven't fallen in love with her.”

“You didn't realize what was passing you by until you slowed down a little bit to get a better look.”

“It didn't take a Harvard economist to figure out that it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper spending money on helping keep kids safe when they were younger than it was to put them in jail when they were older. That was the American way, though. Spend a million dollars rescuing some kid who's fallen down a well, but God forbid you spend a hundred bucks up front to cap the well so the kid never falls down it in the first place.”

“As Toppers rose from her seat on a sofa to meet him, Storm realized that he was looking at an architectural marvel. She weighed less than a hundred pounds and was under five feet tall, but she was so top-heavy that Storm wondered how she kept herself from tumbling facedown when she reached out to shake his hand.”

“. . . he was about as forthcoming as an amnesiac with lockjaw.”

“You can take my heart, but I can't let you take my dog.”