I tended to be hard on the egos of a certain kind of men. The ones who normally swept women off their feet had never moved me much, because I'd always felt that if they swept me off my feet they'd practiced on a lot of women before me, and would practice more with women after me. I'd rarely been wrong on that. ~Anita Blake

Some moments are perfect, and then someone comes along and f*cks it up. Ain't it always the way.

That disapproving look was back in her eyes. Her teacher face. The one that could make you squirm from ten paces, even if you were innocent. And I hadn't been innocent for years.

I wasn't afraid of him anymore, because I could smell his fear. You never had to be afraid of anything that was afraid of you.

By 17, I was submitting to publications and collecting my first rejection slips.

He's no more human than I am, ma petite." At least I'm not dead." That can be remedied.

I turned down Halloween parties every year, where people wanted zombies raised at the stroke of midnight or some such nonsense. The scarier my reputation got, the more people wanted me to come be scary for them. I'd told Bert I could always go and threaten to shoot all the partygoers, that'd be scary. Bert had not been amused. But he had stopped asking me to do parties.