-You're gloating, Max. It's not flattering. Somebody needs to teach you a little humility.- -A good woman could do that.- -She'd have to be armed and dangerous.-

Mrs. Zuppa was coming in from bingo just as I was leaving the building. "Looks like you're going to work," she said, leaning heavily on her cane. "What are you packin'?" "A thirty-eight." "I like a nine-millimeter myself." "A nine's good." "Easier to use a semiautomatic after you've had hip replacement and you walk with a cane," she said. One of those useful pieces of information to file away and resurrect when I turn eighty-three.

Everyone knows you can't see death cooties. Take my word for it, that couch has the biggest, fattest death cooties that ever existed. That couch has the mother of all death cooties. – Lula

I shot that sucker right in the gumpy." Grandma Mazur

I ran three miles, staggered into the lobby, and took the elevator back to my apartment. No point to overdoing this exercise junk. --Stephanie Plum

Some men go a lifetime and never have their kid blow up a car, but I have a daughter who's knocked off three cars and burned down a funeral home. Maybe that's some kind of record.

Morelli beeped his truck unlocked. “If you’re looking for your rent-a-cop, I told Ranger you’d be with me this morning.” “Did he make you take a blood oath that you’d protect me?” “He asked me if I had adequate health insurance.