“Couples stray,” said Edgar. “Part of the breaking-in process.”“Not breaking in, breaking.” Nicola differed sharply. “You can glue people together again. But then your relationship’s like any other repaired object, with cracks, blobs of epoxy, a little askew. It’s never the same. I can see you haven’t a notion what I’m on about, so you’ll have to take my word for it.”“Christ, you’re a babe in the woods.” Edgar stopped slicing tomatoes. “You got it ass-backward. A marriage perched like porcelain on the mantelpiece is doomed. Sooner or later grown-ups treat each other like shit. You gotta be able to kick the thing around, less like china than an old shoe—bam, under the bed, or walk it through some puddles. No love’s gonna last it if can’t take abuse.”

“I’m in your mind, getting to know every part of you. You can put up walls, but sooner or later I’ll break down every last one. There won’t be any secret you can keep or any part of you I don’t know…Intimately.”

“I like to synthesize; I hate analysis. I don’t like to take a subject and break it down into parts; I like to take disparate parts and put them all together and see what happens. I believe the old saw that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Of course, it may also be less. But it’s the parts that interest me; it’s not the whole.”

“We haven’t met… I’m Kori Daniels. If you don’t get that gun out of my face, I’m gonna take it, then I’m gonna break your jaw so I can unhinge it and shove your pistol down your throat. That way the bullet goes through the long way.”

“There’s one thing about getting somebody to help you though…you got to take whatever it looks like - their kind of help. And you can’t be choosin what you like and don’t like. Help is a take it or leave it kind of thing, and if you can’t take it like it comes, might as well leave it, cause it’s gonna be more trouble than it’s worth.”

“We teach people how to treat us. If you don’t put up with shit, and don’t settle for anything less than respect, that’s what you’ll get. But if you let the douchebags walk all over you and treat you like you’re disposable, then that’s what you’ll always get.”