They didn't talk for a while. Johnson popped the top on the second beer, took a long swig, then tossed the nearly full can over his shoulder and down the hill. Good-bye, old friend, he said. I'll...

What Lucas would feel, instead, would be a murderous anger, an iceberg of hate. He would kill anyone who hurt Weather, Sam, or Letty. He'd be cold about it, he'd plan it, but the anger would never go...

We ought to go up north. It'd be nice now, out on the lakes, said the taller one. It's been too warm. Too many mosquitoes. The tall man laughed. 'Bullshit, mosquitoes. We're Indians, dickhead.

I was skateboarding on the levee and lost my edges, she said. You were skateboarding? She turned and looked at him and shook her head in exasperation: No, you dummy, I fell. On the ice. On the...

You're saying the media is dangerous, immoral, and antidemocratic?

Got Hollow Points? Another said: Heavily Armed . . . and easily pissed. A third one: Point and Click . . . means you're out of ammo.

Fresh ideas from this group was virtually an oxymoron, Marlys thought, wriggling her butt against the comfortless chair.

Now Flowers was arguing the same thing back to him. If Dannon and Carver had killed Tubbs, Lucas wouldn't find out about it except by accident. If justice were to be done, it would have to be...

Fuck golf anyway. Stupid goddamn game, chasing a ball around a perfectly good cow pasture.

But the laughter was like a water bug on a pond, skating across the surface of his mind. He was amused and he laughed, but nothing was deeply funny; life was simply stupid most of the time.

D. Wayne Sharf slid across Winky Butterfield's pasture like a greased weasel headed for a chicken house.

LIKE ANY GOOD MINNESOTAN, Lucas rarely missed the TV weather before going to bed.

Felt the dark finger of hypocrisy stroking his soul.

What joke? The one about the guy who rolls a wheelbarrow full of sawdust out of a construction site every night. I don't know that one, Cochran said. Lucas said, The security guy keeps checking and...

NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER: Has excessive feelings of self-importance. Reacts to criticism with rage. Takes advantage of other people. Disregards the feelings of others. Preoccupied with...

Okra is essentially a squid that grows in the ground instead of swimming in the ocean.

I could live here, Del said. No, you couldn't. You'd turn into a coot and hang out at the general store, with your fly down, Lucas said. You'd be known for goosing middle-aged women. You'd be the town...

If there were honorary degrees for assholes, he'd be a doctor of everything, Lily said.

Never been there, the Middle East, Qatar said vaguely.

The day after the assignation with Barstad, the low stacked-heels of Charlotte Neumann, an ordained Episcopalian priest, author of New Art Modalities: Woman/Sin, Sin/Woman, S/in/ister, which, the week...

DDT stood for Dangerous Darrell Thomas. Thomas had given himself the name when he was riding with a motorcycle club and was interviewed for a public radio magazine. The magazine writer got it wrong,...

trust no one, everything breaks, nothing works as advertised, and if anything can go wrong, it will.

Does a chicken have lips?

....there are as many nuts on the left as there are on the right, and in the long run, the lefties are probably more dangerous.

I'll bring pajamas she said. Yeah? You have any idea how old I am? Not nearly as old as you're gonna be by midnight.

Even thinking was hard.

he thought a bit about God, and whether He might be some kind of universal digital computer, subject to the occasional bug or hack. Was it possible that politicians and hedge-fund operators were some...

Lucas's position was supine: that is, whenever he heard people arguing about it, he wanted to lie down and take a nap.

Does Raggedy Ann have a cotton crotch?

The press conference was held in a courtroom at the new county courthouse, a space that did its best to translate justice into laminated wood.