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.

Detective Virgil and Barlow {bomb-technician} arranged to meet at the Starbucks. Virgil got a grande hot chocolate, no-fat milk, no foam, no whipped cream, and Barlow got a venti latte with an extra...

Nuts don't come in bunches. Only grapes do.

Her Pan-Cake makeup was cracking like a dried-out Dakota lake bed.

Flowers said, I got two bottles of water in the car.Get them. And get your gun, Lucas said.The gun? You think?No. I just like to see you wearing the fuckin' gun for a change, Lucas said. C'mon, let's...

I once defenestrated a guy. The cops got all pissed off at me. I was drunk, but they said that was no excuse.Ah well, Virgil said. Then, The guy hurt bad?Cracked his hip. Landed on a Prius. Really...

So she made no secret about being gay?Why should she? the little old lady asked. Nobody would care but a bunch of stuffy old men.

If the AG had been a lightbulb instead of a lawyer, he would have been about a twenty-watt.

First she got Jesus, probably fifteen years ago, and that didn't work out, so she tried Scientology, and that didn't help, but it cost a lot of money, so she tried Buddhism and yoga, and those didn't...

It's the way of the world, man. There are the worker bees, and the manager bees. The worker bees take care of the work, the manager bees take care of themselves.