“I assume you are the sort of person who would go backstage after the opera in hopes of hearing the prima donna crying on the telephone, or walking in on the baritone fellating the basso buffo. I respect that-I was always the same way myself-though I suspect you are not very happy. Happiness is the province of those who ask few questions. I remember, even before this was visited upon me, how I envied those who eagerly did what they were told: those who married without complaint at father's behest; those who looked up rather than sideways in church; those, in short, who honestly believed in God, good kings, and righteous wars.”

“A mundane lie hiding an exotic truth is deception; an exotic lie hiding a mundane truth is storytelling. Deception may be necessary to preserve life, but storytelling makes life worth living.”

“One of the hardest and truest things a grown-up learns is that sometimes it's not okay.”

“We often live next to monsters unawares.”

“You’d probably rather have a milk shake than a quart of blood, too, so we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

“I mostly drink clear booze because the rest of it looks it's already been through a gentleman.”

“The dead shouldn’t cry, not even the lesser dead.”

“She had seen him once, smiling a little through another friar’s sermon about Hell, saying after the other left that fear of Hell is one of many paths to it. Forget Hell and love one another. That is all He wants of you.”

“The undead don’t care about careers. Vampires are all retirees.”

“Happiness is the province of those who ask few questions.”

“The landscape had been so maimed by this new kind of warfare it was as if human architects of great genius had sat down to plan hell, since no two of them could agree on the design of heaven.”