“The haute décor of the San Diego Homicide Division offices could have been lifted straight out of any insurance ajusters' pied-a-terre in Omaha.”

“...I decided I'd changed my mind about home. Home was not Pensacola San Diego Guam or any of the other places we might have lived. In fact home wasn't any particular place at all. Home was my family. Even if they didn't get my jokes sometimes.”

“They can't expect anyone to actually pay for a shirt that says, 'I (picture of an elephant) the San Diego Zoo.' What does that even mean?”

“San Diego has the finest zoo in America, but the Los Angeles Zoo is not much more than a home for retired Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lions.”

“[He] [w]ent deep into the cave where wounded men go when they walk around not talking to anyone about what's happening to them on the inside. Also known as Terre Haute.”

“Fresh peach pie can lift a bullying reprobate into apologetic courtesy; I have watched it happen.”