If I had a razor, I'd cut your throat - just to see what ran out of it."

"Caterpillar blood," I said.

I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again.

The kid poured him another straight rye and I think he doctored it with water down behind the bar because when he came up with it he looked as guilty as if he'd kicked his grandmother.

I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings.

You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that, oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was.

Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.