It was the heart of any scam or fiddle -- keep the punter uncertain, or, if he is certain, make him certain of the wrong thing.

People aren't just people, they are people surrounded by circumstances.

Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinity over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way.

That was always the dream, wasn't it? 'I wish I'd known then what I know now'? But when you got older you found out that you NOW wasn't YOU then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp.

The nice thing about your police procedural as opposed to your classic murder mystery is that in a murder mystery you don't know who did it. Whereas in a police procedural you know, you know everything often and you're watching the police home in.

Knowledge is dangerous, which is why governments often clamp down on people who can think thoughts above a certain caliber.

Everything is a test.