“Chatty, defensive, observant. My new favorite witness.”

“I don't know what that is because to me, Feb. 14 is Rob Thomas' birthday, and that's only what I acknowledge it as. I just like to celebrate that as Rob Thomas' birthday.”

“I could not finance a movie on my own. Frankly, I could not even afford to take a year off. I, like most people in America, need to keep making money.”

“It's funny: I always, as a high school teacher and particularly as a high school yearbook teacher, because yearbook staffs are 90 percent female, I got to sit in and overhear teenage girl talk for many years. I like teenage girls; I like their drama, their foibles. And I think, 'I'll be good with a teenage daughter!'”

“Reading 'Youth in Revolt' might have ruined my career because suddenly I wanted to abandon all the emotional truth of something and just go out far on a literary limb with completely implausible things that relied completely on voice and humor. And what saved me is realizing that I couldn't do that very well.”

“But sometimes the lies we let ourselves believe are for our own good.”

“Her strategy for honoring the dead had always been to take action - solve the mystery, punish the criminal. But what did you do when there was no one to punish? When there were no answers to find? How do you assimilate that kind of loss without losing your mind?”

“It's a noir world. Unfair things happen.”

“The response in the office was predictable, though it wasn't Mac who cooed the loudest; it was her dad."Who's a big fierce monster dog? Who's a bloodthirsty hound from Hell? It's you. Yes it is." Keith knelt to the floor and tickled the puppy's pudgy stomach. Veronica and Logan watched, a”

“Look, this is helping me out quite a bit, but could you just get to the punishment part? We're at the end of World War Two in history, and I can't wait to find out who wins.”

“I also drink Scotch. But I'm not picky. I'll take the victory Scotch, or the Scotch of defeat. Or the rotgut swill.”