“There's always time to read. Don't trust a writer who doesn't read. It's like eating food prepared by a cook who doesn't eat.”

“It must be nice to be so strong and to think it's because you're so good, that you live right and eat right, so you deserve your health and happiness. But there is such a thing as luck, and there's more bad luck than good in this world.”

“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.”

“Reading was not a fallback position for her but an ideal state of being.”

“There's a serendipity to real life that the Internet can't duplicate. Do you use the library? For anything? Well, sometimes you end up picking up the book next to the one you were looking for, and it's that book that changes your life.”

“She was furious, with the kind of fury peculiar to the nonpaying client. Those who can't afford private attorneys . . . assumed legal aid was incompetent. Do-gooders were simply losers in disguise.”

“But you were a goody-goody, you said.' 'Even goody-goodies think about such things. In fact, I would say that's what defines us. We're always thinking about the things we don't dare do, figuring out where the lines are drawn, so we can go right up to the edge of things, then plead innocence on the ground of a technicality.”