“If I wasn't hard, I wouldn't be alive.If I couldn't ever be gentle, I wouldn't deserve to be alive.”

“A slice of spumoni wouldn't have melted on her now.”

“I looked down at the chessboard. The move with the knight was wrong. I put it back where I had moved it from. Knights had no meaning in this game. It wasn't a game for knights.”

“Mostly I just kill time," he said, "and it dies hard.”

“I'm all done with hating you. It's all washed out of me. I hate people hard, but I don't hate them very long.”

“I looked at Spangler. He was leaning forward so far he was almost out of his chair. He looked as if he was going to jump. I couldn't think of any reason why he should jump, so I thought he must be excited. I looked back at Breeze. He was about as excited as a hole in the wall.”

“It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark little clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”