The moral beatings that people took from their children, I was thinking, were the hardest to endure and the hardest to escape. - Ross Macdonald

Nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean wouldn't cure.

You have a secret passion for justice. Why don't you admit it?"
"I have a secret passion for mercy. But justice is what keeps happening to people.

Deep feeling sounded in her voice. I had no doubt that the feeling was partly sincere. Still, there was something unreal about it. I suspected that she'd been playing tricks with her emotions for a long time, until none of them was quite valid.