He was a great and impartial hater; anyone different from him became an object of his contempt. - Michael Nava

[Henry Rios] It has never taken much for me to dislike a cop. My automatic assumption that most of them are assholes is seldom disappointed.

[Henry, to the therapist] "You people always end up wanting to talk about mommy and daddy," I said, intending a joke, but it was more hostile than funny.

He hoisted himself up to the ledge of the pool, the water running streams down his thin, hard body. "I came out here from Tennessee to go to school, a long time ago. I was eighteen and pretty and there wasn't anything I wouldn't do in bed. I had a lot of friends." He pushed wet hair from his forehead. "Thing is, you don't stay young and pretty forever. It began to take more and more booze to keep up the illusion, not that anybody but me was fooled. The friends drifted off, the party moved on, and I woke up one morning and I was thirty-one, broke and a drunk."