The Wolf in Winter

He was trying to put loss into words, but loss is absence and will always defy expression.

Misery loved company, but damnation needed it.

Know a man by his metaphors.

There was a lot to be said for the discipline of married life. It forced one to learn the art of compromise, and to remedy the flaws in one's nature.

It’s a full-time job being homeless. It’s a full-time job being poor.

Prepare for the worst and you won’t be disappointed.

Come on,” I said a third time, to the approaching darkness, to the figures that beckoned from within it, to the peace that comes at last to every dead thing.

It didn’t matter whether a thing existed or not. What mattered was the trouble caused by those who believed in its existence.

The trick was not to stifle the emotions, but to control them. Love, anger, grief – all were weapons in their way, but they needed to be kept in check.

But there was a saying in Hebrew, “We survived Pharoah, we’ll survive this too.” In the words of the old joke, it was the theme of every Jewish holiday: they tried to kill us, they failed, so let’s eat!

If he has a weakness, it’s that he’s a moral being. Where possible, he’ll do the right thing, the just thing, and if he does wrong he’ll bear the guilt of it.

wanted to talk to them. I wanted to tell them that I was sorry. I wanted to say what every child wishes to say to his parents when they’re gone and it’s too late to say anything at all: that I loved them, and had always loved them.

He knew there were some who said that those who kept dogs had to resign themselves to their eventual loss because of the animals’ relatively short lives. The trick—if “trick” was the right word—was to learn to love the spirit of the animal, and to recognize that it transferred itself from dog to

Warraner looked pleasantly surprised at the question, like a Mormon who had suddenly found himself invited into a house for coffee, cake, and a discussion of the wit and wisdom of Joseph Smith.

daddy and it contained within it the prospect of living and the hope of dying, of endings and beginnings, of love and loss and peace and rage, all wrapped up in two whispered syllables.

You pay by the hour, even if the job only takes five minutes. I don’t do fractions.

Warraner would rather have been the king of nothing than the prince of something.

First the girl, then the detective, now the wolf. The town was starting to unravel.

If cats could count, they’d start getting nervous around the time they put paid to their fifth life.

But he was wounded, and tired, and winter was still upon him.

Slow animals always become prey in the end.

On the other hand, all investigations involve a degree of speculation—the capacity to bear witness to a crime and imagine a chain of events that might have caused that crime to be committed. An investigation was not simply a matter of historical research, as Warraner had suggested. It was an act of faith both in one’s own capacities and in the possibility of justice in a world that had made justice subservient to the rule of law.

Justice is never vague,” said Morland. “The law only makes it seem that way. And as for this man . . .

Dates were of no consequence.

but loss is absence, and will always defy expression.

Benny's was more of a restaurant than a bar, assuming you were prepared to be generous with your definition of a restaurant ... A menu board on the wall above had adjustable plastic letters and numbers arranged into the kind of prices that hadn't changed since Elvis died, and the kinds of food choices that had helped kill him.

Every town has someone who is a royal pain in the ass.

But the question that consumed him most was its nature, for he believed that men created gods as much, if not more, than gods created men. If this old god existed, it did so because there were men and women who permitted it to continue to exist through their beliefs. They fed it, and it, in turn, fed them.