Quotes from Carl Hiaasen

Then one morning, while shredding newspapers for the rodent cages, he spotted a headline that would change his destiny: CONGRESS MULLS $8 BILLION PLAN FOR EVERGLADES RESTORATION.

he embarked upon an ambitious research project that ultimately connected him with a person named Samuel Johnson Hammernut, known as "Red" to both friends and enemies. Hammernut's name had become familiar to Chaz through archived newspaper articles that alleged recurring atrocities against his fellowmen—specifically, immigrant farmworkers—as well as the planet itself.

The phones never stopped ringing. This was because Kipper Garth had shrewdly put up his billboards at the most dangerous traffic intersections in South Florida, so that the second thing every noncomatose accident victim saw (after the Jaws of Life) was Kipper Garth's phone number in nine-foot red letters: 555-TORT.

stick together like shit on a shoe.

As a reporter, Brian Keyes had come to know B.D. Harper fairly well. There was nothing not to like; there simply was nothing much at all.

Only Indian tribes are allowed to run casino operations in Florida, so Dusty somehow persuaded a couple of rich Miccosukees from Miami to buy the marina and make it part of their reservation. Dad said the government raised a stink but later backed off because the Indians had better lawyers.

A well-regulated militia," Bode added, "like they talk about in the Second Amendment." "Oh," said Shiner. He hadn't read the first one yet.

For once Yancy didn't mind driving to Miami. Dr. Rosa Campesino had agreed to meet for lunch. On the Eighteen-Mile Stretch he got stuck behind a minivan with a CHOOSE LIFE bumper sticker. Choose the accelerator! How's that for starters? Yancy was shouting, pounding on the horn.

He just wanted to blend in quietly and not be noticed, like a bug on a riverbank.

The corruption investigation wasn't derailed, merely reassigned. Nevertheless, Avila was convinced that the santería spell was a success.

If God was my co-pilot, Yancy once groused to Burton, I'd have the fucking pedal to the metal soon as I left the garage.

About one of every ten thousand Strombus gigas specimens produces a small colorful pearl, the gastric equivalent of a glamour kidney stone, though only a very small percent are gem quality.

For years Harper had run his own successful public-relations firm, staging predictable dumb stunts like putting a snow machine on the beach in January or mailing a ripe Florida orange to every human being in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. This was in the boom days of Miami and, in a way, Sparky Harper had been a proud pioneer of the shameless, witless boosterism that made Florida grow.

The legs weren't hacked off with an ax, which is the most efficient way,' said Dr. Allen, pausing to choose his words. 'It appears from the wounds that Sparky's legs might have been removed by a large animal. They might actually have been... twisted off.

finger mullet

The man called Tool lived in a trailer outside of LaBelle, not far from Lake Okeechobee. The trailer had come with a half-acre parcel upon which the previous owner had cultivated tomatoes, a crop despised by Tool since his days as a crew boss.

Malcolm J. Moldowsky did not hesitate to address United States Congressman Dave Dilbeck as 'a card-carrying shithead.

George Graveline had a motto by which he faithfully lived: Always park in the shade.

The family was jolted when, at age fifty-three, Huff Cornbright perished on an autumn steelhead trip to British Columbia. Swept downstream while wading the Dean River, he foolishly clung to his twelve-hundred-dollar fly rod rather than reach for a low-hanging branch and haul himself to safety.

Nope. He lives over in Boca Raton." "Oh fuck, Red." "I know, it's hor'ble. That's how come the five hundred a day.

He nearly died.' 'Yeah, because he's a fool,' Mickey said. 'There's no known cure for that.

Wiley wrote a daily column for the Sun and probably was the best-known journalist in Miami.

Skip Wiley was thirty-seven years old but he had the eyes of an old Gypsy.

But she's just a stripper.' Moldowsky grabbed Dilbeck's shirt. 'Fanne Fox,' he said, 'was just a stripper. Donna Rice was just a model-slash-actress. Elizabeth Ray was just a secretary who couldn't type. Gennifer Flowers was just a country singer. Don't you get it? Ask Chuck Robb. Or that horny idiot Hart. Teddy Kennedy, for pity's sake. They'll all tell you the same: in politics, stealing is trouble, but pussy is lethal.