“Dennis, please. I don't know what-""Shut the fuck up, and stop playing me for an idiot. And secondly, and more importantly, I've unearthed some disturbing information about you which I want to discuss in more detail before I fill you with holes.”

“Contrary to popular belief, most detectives couldn't detect a heartbeat on a speed addict, but you never know when you might be up against the next Ellery Queen.”

“Chapter 1I was sitting in Tina's Sunset Restaurant, watching the outriggers shuffle lazily through the clear waters of Sabang Bay, when Tomboy took a seat opposite me, ordered a San Miguel from Tina's daughter, and told me someone else had to die. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and up until that point I'd been in a good mood.I told him I didn't want to kill people anymore, that it was a part of my past I didn't want to be reminded of, and he replied that he understood all that, but once again we needed the money. 'It's just the way the cookie crumbles.' he added, with the sort of bullshit 'I share your suffering' expression an undertaker might give to one of his customer's relatives. Tomboy Darke was my business partner and a man with a cliche for every occasion, including murder.”

“I take it you know my companion?"Oh,yes!" said Savage, his smile disappearing. "We know all about Ruby Journey. Please don't let her kill anyone important. Or set fire to anything."Your reputation precedes you," Random said dryly to Ruby.”

“Sometimes you think you know what you want, she said, hugging her children, until you see how much more you can have.”

“A THOUSAND WORDSMy stepfather Ralph Newman was a merry and remarkable man, a former minor league second baseman who broke his nose on a double play ball and wound up opening the Abraham Lincoln Bookshop in Chicago. He was also president of the Chicago Public Library. Ralph used to huff about that phrase, A picture is worth a thousand words and ask, "Does anyone really stop to figure out what you could do with a thousand words?"And, rather in the way that my daughters and I trade, try out, and create stories with each other, my stepfather and I spread out a napkin and came up with this:One picture is worth a thousand words? You give me a thousand words and I can give you:the Lord's Prayer, the Twenty-third Psalm, the Hippocratic Oath, a sonnet by Shakespeare, the Preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the last graphs of Martin Luther King's speech to the March on Washington, and the final entry of Anne Frank's diary.You give me a thousand words, and I don't think I'd trade you for any picture on earth.”

“For a detective or street police, the only real satisfaction is the work itself; when a cop spends more and more time getting aggravated with the details, he's finished. The attitude of co-workers, the indifference of superiors, the poor quality of the equipment - all of it pales if you still love the job; all of it matters if you don't.”