She hissed, right there behind my ear, and I had the horrible idea she was spitting maggots into my hair. Why maggots were a problem when I was about to be dead, I didn’t know, but the idea completely grossed me out. “In the womb I heard you die, for no one lives when a banshee cries.” I wasn’t just going to die. I was going to be rhymed to death. That simply wasn’t fair.

One forgets the fear of heights when one cannot fall

Rita folded her arms around herself and peered up at me. “If you’d asked me three months ago I’d have said you were hitting the bottle too hard. But then I got stabbed and should have died, but instead a bunch of cops and ambulance people showed up because somebody who wasn’t even there sent them on ahead to save my life. If something like that happens to someone like me, you start to have a little faith in something bigger. I don’t know if I believe in magic or miracles all the time. But I believe in you, Detective Walker. I believe in you.

Don’t be sorry. Be good. Be right. Be a hero.

Why do airline pilots always call passengers "folks"? I don't usually take umbrage at generic terminology--I'm one of those forward-thinkers who believes that "man" encompasses the whole darned race -- but at whatever 0'clock in the mornning. I thought it would be nice to be called sometihng that suggested unwashed masses a little less.

They're constants, aren't they?" ... "Books are. That's why we like them so much. They seem immutable. They're not, of course. Not from the author's first draft to the tenth printing, but they seem like it.

To my embarrassment, I was crying again. Real girl tears for the second time, these ones born out of frustration. That didn't happen to me very often, but I hated it when it did. It was faulty wiring in the female body, tear ducts attached directly to the frustration meter. Trying to explain to men that no, I wasn't being manipulative, I just couldn't stop my eyes from leaking salt water, only added to the aggravation.