cimorene

“I’m not above lying, or below it, but the truth will do now.”

An FBI man spends so much time pretending he’s looking somewhere else that his eyes get confused; they’re never quite sure it’s okay to admit they’re focused on you. His jaw is even worse off. It is given to understand that it belongs to a man who is intrepid, daring, dauntless, cool, long-headed, quick-witted, and hard as nails, but it is cautioned that he is also modest, polite, reserved, patient, bland, and never to be noticed in a crowd. No jaw on earth could handle that order. The only question is how often it will twitch, and sideways or up and down.

“I demand an explanation. I intend to hold you to account for alienating the affection of my wife.”

“Affections,” Wolfe said.

“What?”

“Affections. In that context the plural is used.” He lifted the glass and drank, and licked his lips.

Kearns stared at him. “I didn’t come here,” he said, “to have my grammar corrected.”

“Not grammar. Diction.”

“It would be futile for me to say anything whatever until you have regained your senses, if you have any.”

“I’m not above lying, or below it, but the truth will do now.”

“Have you got anything at all in your skull besides air?”

[T]he trouble with an alarm clock is that what seems sensible when you set it seems absurd when it goes off.

Of all the things that I don’t want to be wakened by, the one I resent most is the phone.

“Amazing that a creature so obtuse could live so long without meeting disaster.”

I don’t know how a brain that is never used passes the time.

Every spring I get so fed up with shad roe that I wish to heaven fish would figure out some other way.

I gave my intelligence three seconds to be guided by experience before I spoke.

An FBI man spends so much time pretending he’s looking somewhere else that his eyes get confused; they’re never quite sure it’s okay to admit they’re focused on you. His jaw is even worse off. It is given to understand that it belongs to a man who is intrepid, daring, dauntless, cool, long-headed, quick-witted, and hard as nails, but it is cautioned that he is also modest, polite, reserved, patient, bland, and never to be noticed in a crowd. No jaw on earth could handle that order. The only question is how often it will twitch, and sideways or up and down.

“You’re sharp, aren’t you?”

“I prefer ‘adroit,’ but yes.”

You might have thought we had signed up for peaceful coexistence.

A couple of electricians had installed a juke box inside my skull, and they were still there, testing it to see how many selections it could play simultaneously.

“If you can’t take it easy take it hard, but take it until I call you. Okay?”

“I was talking,” he said.

“Yeah. I was interrupting.”

“Dismiss your fatuous huff for the moment and put your mind on something pertinent.”

“I hired you to make the cops eat dirt, and you already have. The one named Cramer, is he a big one with a big red face and little blue eyes like a pig?”

“Pigs’ eyes are not blue. Otherwise the description fits.”