“As I made my way out of the apartment and got in my patrol car I realized that it wasn't too late to stop myself from getting hardened and losing my sense of compassion. It dawned on me that it had been almost two years--almost to the very day--that I had been sworn in as a police officer. And over the last two years, I had seen lots of situations, many of them with tragic outcomes. I had been made completely aware of the degrees to which people would go to get revenge, to get high, to get laid, to get off easy and to get away with something--even to the point of telling outrageous lies about my own conduct.”

“We needed every detail of the crimes to get him charged; I had to walk him through them. I was like a tourist visiting Hell. I tried to memorize his words, retain all the details of the crimes, while at the same time warding off visions of the events. It was like watching a movie with my eyes closed.”

“It had been a little over a year since the last murder; moreover it had been a year since I had run as quickly as legally possible from whom I had been. It had taken almost that long to become a legal adult, get the money straightened out and get my name changed. Who was Abigail? Who was Vera? I felt as though I was neither person. I felt like I wasn’t a person at all anymore.”

“In the fifty years my parents were married, in the thousands of conversations my dad had with me, it had just never come up. And so there I was, weeks after his death, getting another lesson from him about the meaning of sacrifice—and about the power of humility”

“A moment later I noticed that life around me had gone on as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever occurred. Motorists drove by as usual honking their horns needlessly, brakes screeching, tires squealing; pedestrians maneuvered for an opportunity to dart across traffic. i noticed lawn mowers buzzing in the distance--all this was evidence of the perpetual and sobering reality of life. It goes on no matter who lives or dies. It was time to find my partner.”

“Well if God wanted a broken spirit out of me, He would get Hiswish. At this point in my life the only thing I could do was look up.”

“I get what you're saying, but my hanging with the ladies is mostly for publicity when I'm on tour. I don't sleep with that many girls. Well, not all of them. Okay, I'm trying to behave myself. It's not easy being famous!”