Something about this boat screamed, "I am a very popular model in the world's oil-bearing regions. I cost more than your soul!

I read two mysteries a day when I was a kid. All of Agatha Christie, all of 'Sherlock Holmes.' I've seen every single British detective show ever made.

Lecturing Brooks was as useful as lecturing a cat.

You'd been petting a stuffed dog?' she said 'A dead one?' 'It was a really well stuffed dog' I clarified. 'I have seen some bad taxidermy. This was top-notch work. It would have fooled anyone.

One thing," I said, when we had broken apart and the swirling feeling in my head subsided. "Maybe...don't tell your mom too much about this. I think she has ideas." "What?" he asked, all innocence, as he put an arm around my shoulders and led me back toward his house. "Don't your parents cheer and stare when you make out with someone? Is that weird where you come from? I guess they don't get to see it much, though. From jail, I mean." "Shut it, Weintraub. If I knock you down in the snow, these kids will swarm and eat you.

Being an author means, almost by definition, that you make up characters and then complicate their lives. That's it, really. You make up characters and give them problem after problem after problem.

Money is for doing things, my love. Don't sit on it like a hen sits on an egg. It doesn't hatch. I should know. I've made enough of it.