I don't want to hear from Traffic that my husband was hotdogging the skyways in his minichopper.""You won't. I bribe too well.

Neither of them knew what it was to be family, to have family, to make a family. They knew cruelty, abuse, abandonment. She wondered if that was why they had come together. They both understood what it was to have nothing, to know fear and hunger and despair- and both had remade themselves.

... If you tried to touch my woman she'd break your dick off like a twig then stick it up your arse.

He wanted to heave the glasses against the wall. Break them, break everything he could reach. Beat it, rend it. He stared out the window, imagined the city in flames, consumed to ashes. And still it wasn't enough.

And that, she thought as he left her, summed up the miracle of her life. She had a home with him, and he'd be there.

I got you a present.""Did you?""It's a book of poetry--romancy stuff. I thought, 'How schmaltzy is that,' so it seemed like the thing. Then I screwed up and left it in my desk at work

Far be in from me to dictate how you should assuage your guilt. Do you have a lot of it?"She bit his good shoulder. "You're about to find out."She toppled them both off the bench and onto the mat. "Well, ouch. I take it guilt doesn't bring out your gentler side.

I slept in myself, didn’t get up until about nine.” “Has anyone looked outside, checked to see if the world is still spinning on its axis?” “At which time,” he continued dryly, “I had a workout—I had soufflé, too. Then, before I came down here to enjoy one of my gifts, I worked about an hour in my office.

The security officer smiled and said, ‘Good afternoon, ma’am,’ to me before Igave him ID.”“It’s a sick world, Eve.” He resisted taking her hand for another squeeze. “A sick,sad world.