He looked around when he heard a window-rattling roar. "Earthquake? Volcano? Nuclear war?" "Beaver," Peter told him. "I don't care if it is Alaska, you don't have beavers big enough to sound like that.

I never had a plan, except to write. I love what I do, and have from the beginning. Loving what you do makes it a lot easier to work, every day, to face the tough spots and heel in for the long haul. Nothing against plans; they work for some people. But for me, if I'd been planning, worrying about numbers, trying to micro-manage my career, I wouldn't have focused on the writing. If you don't write, you're not read. If you're not read, you don't sell. So that's my Master Plan, I guess. Write the books, let the agent agent, the editor edit, the publisher publish.

...but even strong women need an arm to lean on now and then. (Anna Whitney in Glory in Death)

She walked with a ghost of herself, one full of potential and possibility. One who was fearless. Where had that girl gone?

He decided there was no point in telling her he'd looked in the fridge and seen none of these things. There'd just be some variation of his mother's standard crack about Male Refrigeration Blindness Syndrome.

I don't kick a man when he's down, unless I'm the one who put him down in the first place. I don't put him down unless he deserves it. And I don't break my word if I give it. So I'll give you my word.

You are wise as well as short." "I can also break bricks with my bare hands." "That's a handy skill if you ever find yourself walled up in the basement of an abandoned house by a psychopath.