“Merrick and I had both had tattoos, my magpie and his elephant and castle, imposed on us asits a long story. A reward, or apology, or both, from the Dragon Head, or grand master, of one of the larg...”

“He went through the bills with the jaundiced eye of a China trader, asking himself not whether he had been stolen from, but where the theft had occurred. If he couldnt find it, that would suggest h...”

“Do you remember—”“Fuck, yes.” Merrick stood. “And if you’re telling this story, I’m getting the bottle.”

“The challenge lies in knowing how to bring this sort of day to a close. His mind has been wound to a pitch of concentration by the interactions of the office. Now there are only silence and the fla...”

“Disillusioned, people simply carried out their work as intended, drinking away sobriety at the end of each hard shift and repeating the process until death.”

“My mind feels like a beehive without the buzz.”

“Failed relationships can be described as so much wasted make-up.”

“Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go its pretty damn good.”

“Aside from the obvious, Francesca, what do you want in return for supplying information? Bones asked, getting back to the subject. You to take me, she replied at once. Not gonna happen! I spat, squ...”

“A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

“I've always said that idleness dulls the spirit. We have to keep the brain busy, or at least the hands if we don't have a brain.”

“If your workplace was somehow transplanted into the jungle and everyone was forced to survive at a very primitive level, it's safe to say that eventually your boss would rape you.”