“The devil you knew was always preferable to the devil you didn't.”

“The devil's voice is sweet to hear.”

“History doesn't repeat itself, but it harmonizes, and what it usually makes is the devil's music.”

“The top drawer was locked, but I forced it open. You know what else was in there, Sanders? Some of the skankiest jerk-off material I have ever seen." "Kids?" Andy asked. He wouldn't be surprised. When the devil got a preacher, he was apt to fall low, indeed. Low enough to put on a tophat and crawl under a rattlesnake. "Worse, Sanders." He lowered his voice. "Orientals.”

“You said 'God is cruel' the way a person who's lived his whole life on Tahiti might say 'Snow is cold'. You knew, but you didn't understand." He stepped close to David and put his palms on the boy's cold cheeks. "Do you know how cruel your God can be, David. How fantastically cruel?”

“so here he sits one drunk nigger in a puclic libary after closing, with the book open in front of me and the bottle of Old Kentucky on my left. 'Tell the truth and shame the devil,' my mom used to say , but she forgot to tell me that sometimes you can't shame Mr Splitfoot sober. The Irish know, but of course they're God's white niggers and who knows maybe they're a step ahead.”

“The trouble with living alone, she had discovered-and the reason why most people she knew didn't like to be alone even for a little while-was that the longer you lived alone, the louder the voices on the right side of your brain got.”