“Like a carpenter with two broken legs at the bottom of a beautiful staircase. Maybe I can't climb the stairs, ma'am, but at least let me admire the workmanship.”

“Like a carpenter with two broken legs at the bottom of a beautiful staircase. Maybe I can't climb the stairs, ma'am, but at least let me admire the workmanship.”

“Maybe it was being orphaned and alone all my life, but I always steeled for the worst outcome I could envision. That way I could shrug and be almost happy with anything that fell short of the worst. It was a peculiar life skill and one I had gotten damn good at.”

“If someone you love asks you to give up something you love, don't do it.”

“This was the desert, everything all at once, whether it was needed or not. What survived had learned to save, live carefully, and keep a low profile, even appear to be dead for long periods. Perseverance and patience.”

“My instinct told me that she didn't want me to understand. What she felt and lived with couldn't be shared or understood by anyone else.”

“Imagination is one of the few things a man can count on if he's got the reality to feed it.”

“Like every other house-renting, paycheck-to-paycheck, heel dragging working American, it wouldn't matter if I stepped in it by accident or was pushed, or simply whiffed it as I walked by. With the powers in play, guilt or innocence had nothing to do with anything.”

“Men were often far different in their roles as fathers than they were as suitors, the memories of which kept them, out of necessity, both vigilant and violent, and even in tender moments, to their daughters.”

“Mr. Welper, of the few certainties I've come across in life, one of them is that when a person says money is no object, the opposite is most likely true. Money is the only object—or will be.”

“of the few certainties I've come across in life, one of them is that when a person says money is no object, the opposite is most likely true. Money is the only object—or will be.”

“Rich people always had someone to call who could arrange something that the average guy couldn't get done, no matter how right or wrong. The only call the poor man could make was to Jesus. If Jesus didn't answer, Smith and Wesson always did.”