She wuz depressed. Yeah, she wuz on stuff for it. Like me. Sometimes it jus' takes you over. It's an illness, " she said, although she made the words sound like "it's uh nill

How could the death of someone you had never met affect you so?

The dead could only speak through the mouths of those left behind, and through the signs they left scattered behind them.

Couples tended to be of roughly equivalent personal attractiveness, though of course factors such as money often seemed to secure a partner of significantly better looks than oneself.

Hers was the kind of family that commissioned painters to immortalize its young: a background utterly alien to Strike, and one he had come to know like a dangerous foreign country.

In spite of her plainness that would have made wallflowers of other women, she radiated a great sense of self-importance.

Who was more conscious than the soldier of capricious fortune, of the random roll of the dice?

You ought to give up detecting and try fantasy writing, Strike

Ridiculous, " he said breathlessly. "You ought to give up detecting and try fantasy writing.

In the inverted food chain of fame, it was the big beasts who were stalked and hunted

You are the artist, and your days the canvas. Will you create an original masterpiece, or live a paint-by-numbers kind of life?

It seems to me if I would want to access the special, mysterious, mystical, powerful and most important, I simply need to live my life more fully.

Die before you die, there is no chance after.

The waves of time wash us all clean.

Days and moments quickly flying, Blend the living with the dead; Soon will you and I be lying Each within our narrow bed.

Goodness is a special kind of truth and beauty. It is truth and beauty in human behavior.

What you don't know will hurt you.

leave it to him to get messed up with deaths little girl

Love yourself - Do it now! Don't wait until you get well or lose the weight, or get the new job, or the new relationship.

I don't believe in Heaven or anything. But I want to be the kind of person that qualifies for entry anyway.