“Just another day in my life. This was one of those days when I thought that maybe a new life, a different life, wouldn't be so bad. But where the hell had I put the receipt, and could you return something that was over twenty years old? Where do you go to get a new life when your old one has you so puzzled you don't know how to fix it? Wish I knew.”

“who is the love of my life? Maybe I don't have one. Maybe it's not love at all. But if it's not love, then what is it? I wish I knew.”

“Stop what? Cheering you up? Or is life supposed to stop because you did something horrible? I'll tell you the real horrible truth, Anita. No matter what you do or how bad you feel about it, life just goes on. Life doesn't give a fuck that you're sorry or upset or deranged or tormented. Life just goes on, and you gotta go on with it, or sit in the middle of the road and feel sorry for yourself. And I don't see you doing that.”

“Grimes believed in what he did, with no doubts. Though he was older than me by over a decade, I suddenly felt old. Some things mark your soul, not in years but in blood and pain and selling off parts of yourself to get the bad guys, until you finally look in the mirror and aren’t sure which side you’re on anymore. There comes a point when having a badge doesn’t make you the good guy, it just makes you one of the guys. I needed to be one of the good guys, or what the hell was I doing?”

“I was just offered a contract on your life, for enough money to make it worth my while." It was my turn to be quiet.Did you take it?"Would I be calling you if I had?"Maybe," I said. He laughed.True, but I'm not going to take it."Why not?"Friendship."Try again," I said.I figure I'll get to kill more people guarding you. If I take the contract, I only get to kill you."Comforting...”

“I have no personal stake in these people, Jean-Claude, but they are people. Good, bad, or indifferent, they are alive, and no one has the right to just arbitrarily snuff them out.” "So it is the sanctity of life you cling to?" I nodded. “That and the fact that every human being is special. Every death is a loss of something precious and irreplaceable.”

“You can not die of grief, though it feels as if you can. A heart does not actually break, though sometimes your chest aches as if it is breaking. Grief dims with time. It is the way of things. There comes a day when you smile again, and you feel like a traitor. How dare I feel happy. How dare I be glad in a world where my father is no more. And then you cry fresh tears, because you do not miss him as much as you once did, and giving up your grief is another kind of death.”