“Ever think of becoming a cop?""I did, but at the time there wasn't much opportunity for women. Lady cops were confined to typing, taking shorthand, and the juvenile division.""And I don't suppose you have any womanly skills like typing or taking shorthand?"I smiled. "No, but I'm a mean shot with a .38 and I bake terrific bread.”

“I hope you'll excuse the mess." David Halpert looked dismayed at the chaos in his living room -- not so much for my sake, but because it was his and he had to live with it.”

“What? What's your issue now?' I asked, annoyed. 'Jus' wonderin' what's it like for Droopy. This place is intense and he's jus' a lil' guy, you know?'Of all the bangers in the world, I had to get Mr. Sensitive. Droopy, I assumed, was Hector Amaya's gang moniker. I wondered why they were always so unflattering. Me, I would've at least picked something like Foxy or Jet. Which, I supposed, explained in part why I wasn't gang material.”

“Underneath my grief that day a resolution was hardening into cement: I would never, ever again create something thinking that I would be able to preserve it.”

“What can I do for you, Detective?' he said cheerily, smiling and nodding at Bailey.What was I, chopped liver? I had a badge too. Maybe I should've shown it to him. Maybe I should've shown him my gun too.”

“I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man may be nourished...I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it.”

“My body betrays me. It ages, I don't”