“Some people say he engineered his own arrest to gain an insight into modern methods of policing for a thriller he had planned. But you know what happens to artistic rats in prison: they have their ...”

“Olga was better, in the sun, where he could see every pore in her skin. Get closer. Feel her next to him. It was all he wanted in the world. It was the last thing in the world that he could do.”

“The sexual contact before this?It was the first time.The woman looked at Rat again, harder. The silence was more painful than the words. What she had just heard went beyond plain immorality. It was...”

“hed assumed their relationship would go on forever. It was going on now, but in another way, like the rearrangement of the stars, which were all still in the sky, just burning in unexpected places.”

“We just move on, dont we, with traitors still amongst us? But there was one thought that wouldnt go away. If I loved him, I would forgive him.”

“I guess if you get too close, the twinkling stops; they dont look like stars anymore.”

“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.”

“Bah! You want to hear the vilest thing a mans done and you want him to be a hero at the same time!”

“There comes a hush between darkness and day.Like expectation of a caress.A murmur of silence. Tree crests peeked down at Paulette through slowly lifting fog. Bark felt around for its texture again....”

“Underneath the groundyou can't hear a soundnot even the sweet falling rainyou might forget about tomorrowforget about the swallowsbut they won't forget youthey won't forget you”