Even after all this time, I keep forgetting that heroes can be found in unlikely places and persons -- like mechanics who can turn into coyotes.

My foster mother always laughed and said it was his reputation for knowing everything that allowed for him to appear infallible: all he had to do was walk through the room and see who looked guiltiest when they saw him. Maybe she was right, but I tried looking innocent the next time, and it didn't work.

The devout belief that the world is explainable is both a terrible vulnerability and a stout shield.

Fortunately, he'd found that most people were easy to locate at five thirty in the morning. .

MS. THOMPSON, it said in heavy block letters, PLEASE KEEP YOUR FELINE OFF MY PROPERTY. IF I SEE IT AGAIN, I WILL EAT IT.

If you could just see your face,” she told me. “You look like a cat in a bathtub.

His grandfather had often told him that he tried too hard to move trees when a wiser man would walk around them.