“John Updike, in that book you gave me, he said the dead make space. Do you know what I think? Updike doesn't know dick about what it's like to be a homicide cop in Baltimore.”

“Oh, Kenneth, Kenneth, believe me - there's nothing I'd rather do! I want like hell to tell you. But I can't. I quite literally can't. Because, don't you see, what I know is what I am? And I can't tell you that. You have to find it out for yourself. I'm like a book you have to read. A book can't read itself to you. It doesn't even know what it's about. I don't know what I'm about.”

“What is war?' I asked.Oh, it's a messy, stupid business,' he said, 'Two sides wave flags and beat drums and shoot one another dead. It always begins this way, making speeches, talking about rights, and all that sort of thing.'But what is it for? What do they get out of it?'I don't know,' he said. 'To tell you the truth, I don't think they know themselves.”

“He turned to me, and do you know what he said to me ? He said in a deadly serious tone, 'Momma, am I dead?' And I said 'no honey, you're not dead', and he shook his head, looking all confused about something. Then he pointed to you dancing and said, 'if I'm not dead, then why is there an Angel in our house.'”

“That's what everyone thinks--they think being a cop is about punishing people for doing wrong. But that's not true. You know it isn't. It's about believing in people, believing in the good. In the will of people to do what's right despite their own instincts.”

“Ephraim, it's an incredibly intimate thing to share one of your favorite books with someone else. I think so, anyway.""How do you mean?""Your father gave me a book on our second date, the first gift he ever gave me." She turned to the front page and studied it. "When you give someone a book, it's lie saying: 'I'm trusting you with something that means a lot to me.' It doesn't matter whether you like it or not, though it helps if you do. What matters is that you understand why she likes it. Why she gave it to you.”