Quotes from Jeff Lindsay

The state of the blood around the wounds indicated that she had been alive for most of the cuts, gashes, and punches, an entire arsenal of attacks that left the corpse looking like she had spent a week at the Academy of Psychotic Assault.

The Schwarzkogler in question turned out to be Rudolf, an Austrian who considered himself an artist, and in order to prove it he reportedly sliced his penis off a little bit at a time and took photographs of the process. This was such an artistic triumph that he continued his career, until his masterpiece finally killed him.

I squinted and looked around, and the intensity of the light hurt my eyes. I wished I'd brought sunglasses. But I also wished I'd brought a bazooka, or at least a baseball bat, so the glasses seemed a little bit trivial. I

I stared at the phone for a long moment before I replaced it in its cradle. I was not sure what had just happened, or what it meant: "Come up to my office right now"? Captains do not hand out special assignments to blood-spatter analysts, and we do not visit captains' offices socially, either. So what was this about? My

Considering the Pollyanna optimism he was showing, I wasn't sure about that, but it didn't seem worth arguing about. "All right," I said. "Then I'll check back with you later. I have a crisis at home.

She smiled and took her hand away. "Good," she said. "So, um, have you found anything that's, you know. Something that might help?

THERE ARE MANY ASPECTS OF HUMAN EXISTENCE that I will never understand, and I don't just mean intellectually. I mean that I lack the ability to empathize, as well as the capacity to feel emotion.

Nothing else loves me, or ever will. Not even—especially—me. I know what I am and that is not a thing to love.

Mr. Morgan," Mrs. Hornberger said sternly. All eyes automatically swiveled to her, and even Rita stopped talking. Mrs. Hornberger looked at us each individually, to make sure we were all paying attention. Then the smile came back to her face, and everyone breathed again. "We were discussing Cody's Ã¢â'¬Â¦ conceptual difficulties Ã¢â'¬Â¦ with socialization.

Would he paddle away any faster if he knew that there was no iron-barred room, no handcuffs, and no arrest churning happily along in his wake? That the only justice for him will be the final kind, from the High Court of Pain, and his rights are limited to only one: He has the right to shuffle off his mortal coil and spin away into the Dark Forever, and there is no appeal, no parole, and no way out at all.

Deborah, however, did not seem to share our good spirits. She scowled even more, and said, "If you two Twinkies are done clowning around, we still got a chopped-up body here.

Meanwhile, Deborah was looking over the two men Hood had brought in. "What happened to these two?" she said to Hood. He shrugged and looked preposterously innocent. "Whataya mean?" he said. Debs

But there is always something the victim does unconsciously, some special trigger that brings a Passenger up out of the shadows and into the driver's seat. Every Monster has his own specific flash point that ignites the Need, and it is almost always different.

Vince shook it playfully. "Maybe it'll help Anderson figure out who the victim is this time," he said. I opened my mouth to say that it didn't seem likely, that Anderson wouldn't figure it out if he had notarized statements from the killer and the victim, and then I closed my mouth and took a step back and didn't say anything at all.

Happily for me, Deborah came back just then, muttering, "I will never complain about the captain again." That seemed highly unlikely, but it did not seem politic to say so. "He can have those bloodsucking bastards from the press." "Maybe you're just not a people person," I said.

For some quixotic reason, Deborah had studied French in high school, and for a few seconds she apparently thought it was going to help her understand the man. She watched him as he raced through several paragraphs, and then finally shook her head. "Je nais comprend—Goddamn it, I can't remember how to say it. Dexter, get somebody up here to translate." The

I know very well that we all feel sexual urges, to one degree or another, even those of us in the Dark Brotherhood. It may be the most basic and pervasive piece of the human clock; we all tick toward sex. But the hands move at different speeds for all of us, and the thing that sets off the chimes is almost always unique. Even so, this was well outside the range even of my understanding. I could not remember seeing something quite this uniquely lustful.

It was puzzling, and very unsettling. But at least it jolted me out of my stupid good cheer and back into general gloominess again. So much for Chinese food: Half an hour later you're grumpy again. Deborah

Well, if there was any real reward for complaining I hadn't seen it so far, in a life filled with suffering and verbal skill. So I might as well take what was offered and see where it led.

And as the night dragged on, so did the terrible, dreary introspection. Had I been misleading myself my entire life?

Well, then, Brian said. I guess it will be all right - if there's still time for some pie? [Brian Moser]

However, there is one almost overwhelmingly common human experience I feel powerfully, and that is temptation.

He gave me his terrible phony smile, which looked like something he had learned to do by studying a government manual on facial expressions. "The ways of the jungle are hard, Grasshopper," he said.

But on a moment's reflection, it didn't seem that natural at all. Mere hours ago I was as good as dead in Deborah's eyes, lower than pond scum—and for the very same reason that she now found my company desirable. It was such a cold and utilitarian about-face, so completely reptilian, that I should have admired it. I didn't. I needed more.