“Nothing that had happened in the past could be taken away. This was an amazing gift. The past was done and over and settled; you couldn't get it back, but still, whatever good you had gotten from it, spiritually, emotionally, would be yours for your lifetime.”

“When you're living your life in endurance mode, you don't expect anything good to happen. I'm not saying that you don't dream about some miracle that would change everything for the better. But you pretty much know it's only a fantasy, and that you have no real control over anything.”

“Okay, I wasn't getting something, by there was nothing I could do about it. I wasn't the Buddha. I couldn't have a vision. Unless, maybe, it was drug-induced.”

“But just now, he'd gotten on his knees and proposed marriage, like in a television commercial for a diamond ring. Except of course they had the roll of duct tape instead, which, when you came to think about it, was a far more practical item. Such a bad mistake it would be, to embark on marriage and adult life without a nice supply of duct tape.”

“Lucy had to guard her reputation - her reputation for sanity - the way that a woman a hundred years before would have had to guard her reputation for virtue.”

“Zach found himself remembering something he'd heard Soledad and Leo saying the previous night, about healing. That it was mysterious. That it took time. And that Lucy was just at the beginning. That a terrible thing had happened - two terrible things, really - but they were now over.And that Lucy would be okay, in the end.”

“Anyone in this world can have the power of life and death over someone else. It's horrible, but true. All you need to do is take it. And once you have -- there is no going back. (The Killer's Cousin)”