“At the departure gate, a drunken airport security woman was handing out box cutters to the passengers.”

“He tried to close a hand around the precious coffee but had to jerk his fingers away, sharply enough that his wrist popped painfully. Tallow wondered if the other end of the coffee machine was slurping water out of a lake in Hell.”

“Where's the elevator?" Mike asked, sheathing his weapon. Tallow felt a little better telling Mike there wasn't an elevator and watching his face. But then Mike picked up the dolly, boxes and all, with one hand, took the kit bag from Sophie with the other, and started jogging up the stairs with"Third floor, right?""There," said Scarly, "goes a man who has names for all his muscles.""I was just thinking that," Tallow said. "Serious gym rat.""No, I mean he's named all his muscles. That's a man who calls one of his muscles Steve.”

“Some asshole scraped the 'I' out of INVESTIGATOR with their keys six months ago. I simply can’t be bothered to fix that one. For all the work I get, I may as well be an 'invest gator”

“Think about it; the quicktank is given a job most of us would laugh out of town. Build a sophisticated camera capable of full 3-D input and peripheral pickup, using only water and jelly.Build an eye.”

“We may have been crazed, strange and entirely too eager to find new things to have sex with - but we went out to preserve great chunks of this planet's cultures and we damned well did it with some style”

“Why do I even have to say this? Why do I have to say "Get off the unique and probably alien living plinth that zaps the unwary?" What is wrong with my life that I have to say these things out loud...?”