The law should be the point at which savagery ended because civilization stood in its path.

Truth travels slowly and gets weaker as it goes. Suitable lies are strong and run faster.

Ghosts cannot be put on the witness stand, or have their fingerprints taken. They are completely proof against proof.

Obviously, not everybody who dies becomes a ghost, otherwise those who are psychic would be aware of shouldering through deep crowds of assorted shades every time they moved.

Insanity has excuses; wickedness has not.

A daughter,' Rowley scooped up the child and held her high. The baby blinked from sleep and crowed with him. 'Any fool can have a son,' he said. 'It takes a man to conceive a daughter.

Tomorrows were full of awful things. Today, now, was the essential.

Alcoholism plus criminality plus whatever caused both in the first place form a combination that is very nearly happy-ending-proof.

To what do you not drive human hearts, cursed for craving gold!

The scar, and her indifference to it, did something extraordinary for her, just as damage to some art object threw into relief how beautiful it had once been, tarnishing and tempering her face with the reminder of what humanity did to lovely things and how they bore it.

To ignore his capacity for evil is as obtuse as blinding oneself to the heights to which he can soar.

Crime, after all, can be a way of establishing identity or acquiring security -- at least the magistrate addresses you by name.

A stupid man -- the most dangerous animal of all.