“There are far more reasons for death than there are for life.”

“There is no abstract Evil; you have to understand that! Its roots are here, all around us, in this herd that goes on chewing and having a good time only an hour after a murder! That's what you have to fight for. For people. Evil is a hydra with many heads, and the more of them you cut off, the more it grows! Hydras have to be starved to death, do you understand that? Kill a hundred Dark Ones, and a thousand more will take their place.”

“If they do anything to me, just skin them alive, sweetheart," I said."I'll do more than that-- I'll make them eat their own skins.”

“Haggis" is a brand of nappies.' I said. 'They're good, we used them for our daughter.''Haggis is a kind of food too,' said Semyon, shaking his head. 'Although as far as taste goes, there's probably not much difference.”

“Being on the side of the Light is much tougher than being on the side of the Dark...”

“And the simple people are trash. A herd of sheep that are good for shearing, but sometimes it's more profitable to slaughter them.”

“How wonderful it would be if everything could always be as clear and simple as it used to be when you were twelve years old, or twenty years old. If there really were only two colors in the world: black and white. But even the most honest and ingenuous cop, raised on the resounding ideal of the stars and stripes, has to understand sooner or later that there's more than just Darkness and Light out on the streets. There are understandings, concessions, agreements. Informers, traps, provocations. Sooner or later the time comes when you have to betray your own side, plant bags of heroin in pockets, and beat people on the kidneys—carefully, so there are no marks.”