"It was all attitude, Richard knew. All it took was a certain carriage, a manly posture, a strut that stank of violence and warned all who saw you that you were the stone stud." Chapter 1, pg. 13

"The outside world: Richard had forgotten such a place existed. The weight of the prison was its totality, its immensity: in its grip, all other possibilities diminished, even disappeared."
Chapter 1, pg. 23

"He wasn't exactly an emotion machine, and his profession had conspired to drive what few public feelings he had even deeper behind the set lines of his squarish face. No one could read much on Bud." Chapter 2, pg. 27

"Put Richard on the street and he's dead. Put Richard in jail and he's dead. Put him in Russia, in ancient Rome, on Mars, in the Marine Corps, all those places—he's dead. Not Lamar. Lamar ends up running most of them...