“Sprawled, bloody, holding the pistol, he looked like a police photograph of a suicide. Dart went back to his chair and picked up the Smith and Wesson. Five minutes passed like a year.”

“He reached out, opened the glove compartment, and took out a gun. It was a Smith & Wesson .38 five-shot special. It looked a lot like my gun."I stopped by your apartment this morning and picked this up for you," Ranger said. "I found it in the cookie jar.""Tough guys always keep their gun in the cookie jar.""Name one.""Rockford."Ranger grinned. "I stand corrected.”

“They say that at the mountain pass he looked back at his kingdom, his beautiful kingdom, and wept, and his mother told him to weep like a woman for what he could not hold as a man.”

“She picked up the ballpoint pen lying on the table, and played with it for a few seconds, but then she looked at the clock again. It had done its job: in the five minutes since her last look, it had advanced five minutes' worth.”

“I don't need no Smith and Wesson, man, I got Merriam and Webster.”

“I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the same wonder at what will come next as I felt then.”