“She looked in the mirror and her hopes fell. “Our friend is behind us again and he’s coming up fast. Closing the distance.”Then he knows we’re on to him.”Christ! He’s got a gun, Red! He’s stuck his arm out the window.”Don’t worry,” Red told her. “Shooting a pistol left-handed from a moving car at another moving car at sixty miles an hour at this distance? Hell, he’d be lucky to hit that mountain.”There was a sharp crack and the rear window disintegrated into flashing shards. Something buzzed in the air between them and smashed into the tapedeck. Fee howled and ducked into his console.Unless,” Red continued thoughtfully, “that’s Orvid Crayle behind us. He’s very good.”

“A man looks down at the red paint on his hands and wonders for a moment if he’s killed his wife and this is her blood or maybe he’s just painted the garden bench red, that’s all. He thinks it is a strange thought and carries on digging the hole he’s digging in the back garden. He whistles. He writes this all down in his moleskin diary, later that evening. His wife should be back from work by now but she isn’t.”

“His eyes were closing again, all of their own accord, so that he lay in red, pain-filled darkness. It occured to him that he was dying and he didn’t care. ‘He’s alive!’ Blue said again ‘He’s breathing!’ ‘I can’t see him breathing.”

“I’ve worked out a tattoo – if I had one” says Ryan. I look at what he’s done. He’s got the outline of my hand over his heart and in it he’s written, Her...”

“Susan was a tough-minded romantic. She wanted to fall in love with a book. She always had reasons for her devotions, as an astute reader would, but she was, to her credit, probably the most emotional one among us. Susan could fall in love with a book in more or less the way one falls in love with a person. Yes, you can provide, if asked, a list of your loved one’s lovable qualities: he’s kind and funny and smart and generous and he knows the names of trees.But he’s also more than amalgamation of qualities. You love him, the entirety of him, which can’t be wholly explained by even the most exhaustive explication of his virtues. And you love him no less for his failings. O.K., he’s bad with money, he can be moody sometimes, and he snores. His marvels so outshine the little complaints as to render them ridiculous.”

“I really hope he shapes up, you know? He’s got a good head on his shoulders when he’s not trying to give himself alcohol poisoning.”

“That’s why; he’s worried about how his life is turning out, and he’s lonely, and lonely people are the bitterest of them all”