“My life is ruined!" She sobbed. "It's just one big rotting whale carcass on the beach of broken dreams!”

“Before she closed the door, she hit me with this one: "I feel like it's November first," she said, "and I'm that discarded jack-o'-lantern whose heart and guts are splattered all over the boulevard of broken promises.""And a good night to you, too," I said.”

“My life," she said dramatically, with her eyes closed, "is one heaping bowl of warmed-over despair, seasoned with equal dashes of aggravation and angst!”

“It's a lie to feel any war is far away.”

“The stink of rot and ruin, of old dreams, broken screams, and wicked, dirty little things.”

“A surgeon would never hesitate to amputate a rotting hand, no matter how faithfully it had served its owner in the past.”

“I concentrated hard and snapped my fingers. "You don't see the sword," I told the girl. "It's just a ballpoint pen." She blinked. "Um . . . no. It's a sword, weirdo.”