“In Battle, as in charity, it is better to give than to receive.”

“I yawned and stretched luxuriously in the morning. I make noises when I stretch because it feels ten times better than stretching silently.”

“As any war veteran will tell you, there is a vast difference between preparing for battle and actually facing battle for the first time. You can be told that reading Victor Hugo will sap your will to live, but you can't understand what it means until you've read a few chapters and your eyes are glazed over and someone has to revive you with a defibrillator.”

“Icy glares from vampires are far icier than icy glares from people and when the vampire giving you an icy glare is originally from Iceland, you're confronted with the archetypal origin of the term, and you shouldn't be surprised if your core body temperature drops a few degrees.”

“Hopefully next time I won't be recovering from an assassination attempt, and then I'll do better.”

“its difficult to dislike a man who takes pleasure in giving away free beer.”

“That's the famous vampire Helgarson you're riding with, isn't it? Is he fond of lattes?""I don't know." I looked over at Leif, who was grinning-he was hearing both sides of the conversation, of course-and said, "Malina wants to know if you like lattes, and I want to know if you're famous.""No to both," he said, as we screamed onto the 202 on-ramp."Sorry, Malina," I said to the phone. "He's not famous.""Perhaps it would be better to call infamous. It is irrelevant at this point. What is relevant is that my sisters and I are not great warriors. Were the odds even and they did not cheat with modern weapons, I would say, yes, we could walk in and win a magical battle against most opponents. But we are outnumbered more than three to one.""How many are there?""Twenty-two. Some of them have firearms, but they are not great warriors either. And while they may be expecting you, Mr. O'Sullivan, they will not be expecting Mr. Helgarson to get involved. I imagine the two of you together will be quite formidable.""She's complimenting our martial prowess, Leif," I said to him."I feel more manly already," He said. The short distance on the 202 was already covered and we were merging onto the southbound 101."Hey, Malina, tell me how much you want to see us play with our swords.”