“Most of the funeral stuff is going to be done during daylight hours,” I said. “I’m not even going to be able to attend the burial. Humans get upset when vampires burst into flames right next to them.”

“I’ve never done this before. I didn’t go to human bars. Mudslides aside, I’m not much of a drinker. Club people are not my people. Now, book-club people—”

“What can you do?" he asked.It took me a few seconds to catch up to Daddy's question. He was asking about my snazzy new vampire powers, not expressing helplessness about my being turned by a guy with "shoves trees on people" tendencies."Oh, um, a lot of stuff, except, you know, eat solid food and go outside during the day, " I said. "Even my pot pie?" Mama cried. Yes, because in this situation, pot pie was what we should be focusing on.”

“Sophie was a walking truth serum. If she was touching bare skin, she could yank the truth out of you like a loose tooth. I’d spent several unpleasant hours in her company during the Council’s screening process for humans who planned to work with vampires. That’s when I learned that you don’t refer to Buffy, the Winchesters, or even the Frog Brothers from The Lost Boys in front of Council officials. They do not have a sense of humor about that sort of entertainment.”

“Don’t tell them he’s upstairs , I commanded my brain. Tell them he moved to Pacoima to start a commune for vegetarian vampires. Tell them he’s looking into getting a sex-change operation and renaming himself Lulu Pleshette.”

“Establishing dominance early in the relationship is key. Vampire children are like human children in that they can sense weakness. They will wait for you to be busy or too distracted to realize that you’ve given them permission to feed on the pizza guy. —Siring for the Stupid: A Beginner’s Guide to Raising Newborn Vampires”

“Jane: "Missy was not so subtly reminding me that she had done something nice for me and here i was being rude when all she was asking me to do was attend a nice party. This was the way southern women worked all peaches & cream laced with arsenic.”