You will suffer, son of Hades!’ What else is new? Nico thought.

If you removed all the arteries, veins, & capillaries from a person’s body, and tied them end-to-end…the person will die.

How was your afternoon?"“No one died, so it was a big improvement on my morning.

He had followed the calendar, the years, time-Bird farted.And it came to me, as though it were riding one moment of the gusting wind, as though bird had had it in him all the time and had passed it to me in that one moment of instant corruption.

If you have seen darkness, you will appreciate the dawn of light.

The light and the stars guide my way.

He looked at the silver pocketknife in his hand. An idea came to him – possibly the stupidest, craziest idea he’d had since he thought, Hey, I’ll get Percy to swim in the River Styx! He’ll love me for that!

Apparently, we're all in the frame," I heard Harry murmur somewhere behind me. And I whirled back to him. Innate, irrational anger surged. Then stopped, dead - as I suddenly took in Handsome, Robert and Doc. They were all staring at me. They were concentrating, all resolute, all a tad furrow-browed… upon my face.Self-consciousness burgeoned. I gingerly fingered my and lips and my chin,"Am I drooling?""Your arse is hanging out," said Harry, not looking up from the forensics he was scanning.And so it was.Handsome, Robert and Doc averted their eyes as I, wishing I'd merely been dribbling, grabbed the back flaps of my breezy hospital gown, fully placed my back against the wall. Then, thinking better of it, dived hurriedly, carefully, back into bed.If Chinese Lady'd been here, she could've, would've, told me.I missed her already.

SWAT? For me?" Still trembling, one hand clung to the ambulance gurney, the other held a massive sterilised cotton wool wad under my nose."Tactical Support was busy. You got Dennis and Arlo," said Harry, speed-reading the papers he'd snatched from inside my jacket.Closest his hands had been to my chest in a long time."Which one broke my nose?""That'd be Dennis.

Moreover, man carries in his heart the desire always to wield his scientific knowledge in service of the greater good. He would of course never use it for destructive purposes. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! ...

Knives are sharp, but are equally confusing.

If the US is a human melting pot, then Eastern Europe is a scrap yard.

I knew today was gonna be bad, but I never got close to this

The young woman's perfect breast didn't yield beneath the gentle pressure of two latexed fingers."What're you doing?" Professor Robert 'Lithium Bob' Beck frowned at me."I don't know. It's what I did when I first saw her…""Why?" asked Doc Donald, about to assist with the post mortem."She seemed so… pink. Maybe to see if she was alive…" I saw the Prof and the Doc exchange a look. It was an unconventional - no, plain weird - place to touch her.

All I said was that I thought it was a judgement from God that Blyth had first lost his leg and then had the replacement become the instrument of his downfall. All because of the rabbits. Eric, who was going through a religious phase at the time which I suppose I was to some extent copying, thought this was a terrible thing to say; God wasn't like that. I said the one I believed in was.

It’s not easy to be God.

The concrete floor beneath the airbed was hard and uncompromising, digging into her back and making it difficult to breathe. The stale air reeked of disinfectant and shit. And something else that she couldn't quite place. Death, perhaps?

Drink a bottle of cheap champagne. Mix with orange juice. A large Glenmorangie. Milk and blackish toast. Half a bottle of Blue Nun. Budweiser. Budweiser. Go to church. Say I do etc. Budweiser. Murphy’s. Jameson. Budweiser. Stella. Stella. Cake. Stella. Jameson. Stella. Vodka and orange. Vodka and black. Speech, speech. Vodka. Vodka. Double Jameson. Double vodka. Double vodka. Get carry-outs of barley wine. Say goodbye to aunties. Uncles. Mothers etc. Stop car on M18. Vomit. Sleep. Dream of dim-lit hallways and a black door. Wake up between Scarborough and Robin Hood’s Bay. Her not saying much. Driving.

My wife was saying to me just the other day how she's noticed a spring in my step lately. That was because I thought you were gone forever.' 'I missed you too, Thurid.

However, for all his affection and loyalty towards the animal, the dog would soon be leaving him - they would both be present at a celebratory dinner when they reached the roof, he reflected with a touch of gallows-humour, but the poodle would be in the pot.

He liked murder. Murder and long walks had been two of his favorite things when he was younger.