"Tell you what, you let me go, and I'll ask you plenty of questions about your race. Until then, I'm slightly distracted with how this little vacation on the good ship Holy Sh*t is going to pan out for me."

"As far as he was concerned, there were only two good positions for a human. A female on her back. And a male facedown not breathing."

"Life. In all it's mundane majesty."

"He cleared his throat and reminded himself that if you pissed Her Holiness off, they'd need barbecue tongs to pick up your steaming pieces."

"You are the sweetest thug I've ever known."

"Destiny was a machine built over time, each choice that you made in life adding another gear, another conveyor belt, another assemblyman. Where you ended up was the product that was spit out at the end-and there was no going back for a redo. You couldnYt take a peek at what youYd manufactured and decide, Oh, wait, I wanted to make sewing machines instead of machine guns; let me go back to the beginning and start again. One shot. That was all you got."

"Some bridges you crossed on your own, no matter who drove you to the edge."

"Listen to me ... and I want you to remember this. Your legs are part of you, but not all of you or what you are. So wherever we go after tonight, I need you to know that you are no less for the injury. Even if you are in a chair, you still stand as tall as you ever did. Height is just a vertical number - it doesn't mean shit when it comes to your character or the kind of life you live."

"Funny thing about glass. When you broke the shit up, it got pissed and bit back."

"Without time, you have only the bottomless, shapeless mire of eternity....Time is what gives life significance."

"If sex were food, Rhage would have been morbidly obese."

"But that was life: Nobody got a guided tour to their own theme park. You had to hop on the rides as they presented themselves, never knowing whether you would like the one you were in line for...or if the bastard was going to make you throw up your corn dog and your cotton candy all over the place."

"As he shut the door, he was painfully aware that they were each talking about their young--only Wrath's had four paws and a tail.Least he didn't have to worry about George succeeding him or being blind."

"Wrath: look at how their folklore portrays our species. There's Dracula for Christ's sake, an evil bloodsucker who preys on the defenseless. There's piss-poor B movies and porn. And don't get me started on the whole Halloween thing. Plastic fangs. Black capes. The only thing the idiots got right are that we drink blood and that we can't go out in daylight. The rest is bullshit, fabricated to alienate us and stimulate fear in the masses. Or just as offensive, the fiction used to create some kind of mystique for bored humans who think the dark side is a fun place to visit."

"Too late Bella. Now, it's too late. Show me."

"Ah, hell.His peripheral vision was working far too well tonight.His slut of a cousin, his cocksucking, suit-wearing, Montblanc-up-the-ass cousin Saxton the Magnificent, was standing next to the queen, looking like a combination of Cary Grant and some model in a goddamn cologne ad.Not that Qhuinn was bitter.Because the guy was sharing Blay's bed.Nah.Nope. Not at all.The Cocksucker-With a wince, he thought maybe he should switch that insult to something a little farther away from what the two of them ...God, he couldn't even go there. Not if he wanted to breathe."

"The heavy soul will not pass though the body is failing."

"All around, grown men were getting out of cars and shoving at each other like fifteen-year-olds, the bunch of juiced-up, armchair quarterbacks ready to peanut-gallery it up: The closest they were going to get to the octagon was standing on the outside of the chicken wire looking in."

"Bottom line? As much as youwanted someone to change and believed they could, they were in control of their life. Not you. And you could throw yourself against the wall of their choices until you were black-and-blue and dizzy as hell, but unless they decided to take a different road, the outcome wasn't going to be what you wanted."

"And why had those prayers been focused heavenward? Well, it kind of made sense, didn't it? Even when there were no more options for the body, the heart's wishes find a way out, and as with all warmth, love rises. Besides, the will to fly was in the nature of the soul, so its home had to be up above."