Quotes from Janet Evanovich

Dear Lord,' Lula said, 'Bless this disgusting, swelled-up groundhog and take him into the Kingdom of Heaven or wherever it is that dead groundhogs are supposed to go. Amen.' We both made the sign of the cross. 'I would have said more, but I didn't really know the deceased,' Lula said.

I'm usually only mentally rude to people.

drawn, eyes wide. "Holy Toledo," she said. "I called everyone I could think of while I was driving," Sally said.

I graduated J&W in the top ninety-three percent of my class, and I would have graduated higher, but I flunked gravy. My gravy had lumps in it, and that pretty much sums up my life so far. Not that it's been all bad; more that it hasn't been entirely smooth.

hung her slim brown Fendi messenger bag on the shoulder of her designer suit

Are you hungry?" Grandma asked me. "Do you need breakfast?" "I'm famished!

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines. Holy

Okay," she said. "I'll go with him, but you owe me. I want one of them five-gallon jugs of rice pudding when I come

I get my hair done first, and then Margie and I go shoot a hundred rounds," Grandma said. "I wouldn't be telling you this, but pretty soon I imagine I'll have my own house and lots of money for ammo, and I'll be able to shoot every day if I want.

FARC, the Colombian rebels who've been funding their revolution against the state with kidnapping, extortion, and drug dealing.

We better hurry, Grandma said. I don't want to be late for the viewing. I want to get a good seat right up front, and there'll probably be a crowd, being that the deceased was shot. You know how some people are nosy about that sort of thing. There was silence at the table, no one daring to make a comment. Well, I guess I might be a little nosy, Grandma finally said.

I went to the beauty salon today and got spruced up, Grandma said. Ever since Mildred Frick called me a slut my phone hasn't stopped ringing. I got two dates for the weekend. It might not be such a good thing to have men calling you because they think you're a slut, I said. They're only going to be after one thing. I hope that's true. I don't want to find out I went blond and bought all them thongs for nothing.

We wouldn't want the shit we do to not be epic," I said. "Hell no. Ordinary shit is just shit.

Smith & Wesson .45 revolver.

collared knit shirts from the Tony Soprano collection at JCPenney.

Ramos drank a shot, then he lit up and dragged the smoke deep into his lungs. 'Ahh, he said on the exhale. Sometimes I envy people who smoke. They always look so happy when they suck in that first lungful of tar. I can't think of many things that make me that happy. Maybe birthday cake.

I'm a firm believer in denial. My reasoning is why deal with unpleasantness today when you could get hit by a bus tomorrow. And if you procrastinate long enough, maybe the issue will go away.

If she had any sense at all, she'd clean out her desk and look for another job. Something safe and sane, like catching alligators or looking for land mines in Afghanistan.

key to true happiness is lowered expectations.

Teddy Roosevelt who, as president, signed the Antiquities Act of 1906, allowing the president, with the stroke of a pen, to seize control of any lands he deems of natural, cultural, or scientific importance. It's been used hundreds of times since 1906 to create national parks and federal monuments.

I know that the Federal Reserve vault holds more gold than Fort Knox. Fort Knox only holds about four thousand six hundred tons of gold. The Federal Reserve vault holds approximately seven thousand. That's a lot of gold.

Riley had been in the interrogation room for six hours. For most people, this would have been a terrible hardship. Even a few weeks ago, Riley herself would have seen it as a nightmare. Now she just thought it was a nice place to sit down and take a rest. After all, she wasn't climbing down a rope into a dark cavern or getting pushed over a cliff, tied up in a car.

I'm always amazed at how you never destroy my cars the same way twice. This one is especially clever the way it's impaled on the tree.

gold is stored in New York in vaults resting on bedrock, eighty feet below street level. The walls of the vaults are steel-reinforced concrete. The vaults are impenetrable.