Nina Post > Quotes

“You just finished a job, as you refer to it. You must be tired and I can only imagine the enervating quality of an added threat of the state pen."

"California's state pen is Fisher," Cat said. "It can write upside down, but I think a pencil works better for that.”
― Nina Post, The Zaanics Deceit

“And he had lost his focus again. He tried his Skeletor voice, a less frequently used but effective attention-focusing tactic: Skeletor to Shawn Danger! Skeletor to Shawn Danger! Focus, Danger! Skeletor was a shitty life coach, but something about his grating voice could sometimes spur him into action.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“He started at a sporting goods store, where he bought several models of steel tent stakes, icepicks ("sailors buy them," an employee told him), hammers, and rubber mallets. No one even raised a brow at his purchase of Homicidal Maniac Variety Pack - As Seen On TV.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“Friendship is a sheltering tree." Samuel Taylor Coleridge”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“True, he didn't know what his Dad would have been like if he hadn't been in Vietnam,”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“At home, he needed to hear the purring of his cat. It was the only thing that attenuated his nerves when his job was getting to him.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“Shawn rested his head against the seat then turned to talk to Sarah. "It's your birthday tomorrow." "Ruby Tuesday's thought it was three months ago." "Ruby Tuesday's has a touch of dementia.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“Alfred Hitchcock suffered from anxiety attacks," Sarah told him, "and he said that the sources behind them were, in order, small children, policemen, high places, and that his next movie wouldn't be as good as the last one." "Small children can be terrifying.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“We can finally start translating the book," Cate said. "At least, I think we can."

"A rousing call, not dissimilar from the band of brothers speech in Henry V." [reply from Noah]”
― Nina Post, The Zaanics Deceit

“The atmosphere at the Flagship Creamery location was tense as they approached the counter. "Maybe this is just one of those tense Flagship Creameries," Sarah said in a low voice. "Yeah, some of them are just high-strung," Shawn murmured back as they approached the counter.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“I'm the death investigator," the man said in a dry voice. He was wearing gray chinos, plain black walking sneakers, a tucked-in white short-sleeved polo shirt with a pen inserted on the placket, and a gray windbreaker. His head was slightly over-large and his hair was thinning. If he was going for the look of 'quietly angry engineer who will one day explode,' or 'DI by day, super-villain by night,' he had succeeded.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“As he took careful steps into the dark, wooden garage, he smelled linseed oil and solvents with a citrus note, which in turn sounded like an extremely disagreeable bottle of wine.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“He took the laser pointer off the side table and flicked it on, dancing its red light over the wall. Comet finished eating then walked over like he wasn't really interested, like he just happened to be passing by, but then went predictably crazy.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“Jasper's mother had died while he was a junior in high school --”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“Bag that box for me," he called out to Crane as he ran back to the main house with the key, pushing through the group of startled monks. He clambered back down the basement stairs, sneezing again on the way, then poised the key in front of the lock. He slid the key in, finessing it a little side to side, muttering a short prayer to anyone or anything that could turn this damn case around, whether the entity the monks dedicated their lives to, the washing machine daemon, or the minor Sumerian god who lived in Ron Safari's hair.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“Ashburn gestured dramatically. "Look, I can't explain the psychology behind it. All I know is, it's more satisfying to get the jelly beans with an office supply order. They just taste better when they arrive in the same box as four hundred legal pads.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“Danger!" Shawn heard, and automatically thought, Will Robinson. Old habit.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“It was more likely that Comet would be governor of Pennsylvania. Shawn hoped his cat wouldn't forget him once he got into a position of power like that.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“She wondered if that's what he said whenever people asked him where he was from. 'The front desk.' Then the person would ask, But where is your family from? And Marcus would answer, 'The front desk.”
― Nina Post, The Zaanics Deceit

“Darcy was afraid to slow down, Shawn thought. If she wasn't working, wasn't busy, the bad stuff would catch up to her. But if she kept moving and focusing on work, she could fend it off.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“This time, the pathologist had a morgue assistant, a tall, skinny guy with glasses like airplane windows and a nimbus of brown hair, triple the height of Lyle Lovett's, and with a wave that rivaled the Banzai Pipeline. The hair probably had its own intelligence. It probably had its own Netflix account. It probably received regular invitations to speak at Ivy League commencement ceremonies. It probably contained a netherworld where monsters had houses.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“When he got home, Comet ran out of the kitchen and snaked around his ankles then pranced back over to the kitchen.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“Jerry shifted the clipboard to his side as he rested his fists on his hips, as though to attest to his in-chargeness.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“And everyone knows the job market is crap, so you probably won't be able to find another job."

"Actually, I'm really good at what I--"

"And then you'll start missing your rent payments, and the collection agencies will start calling, and you'll start robbing check-cashing places to get money for drugs, and the next thing you know, you're wearing a set of gold fang dentures.”
― Nina Post, The Zaanics Deceit

“What was it Isak Dinesen had said about salt as a cure? Tears, sweat, or the sea. She could use a cure.”
― Nina Post, The Zaanics Deceit

“The neighbor, Andy Tunks, called it in at 6:17 a.m. The victim didn't show up for a morning jog.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“The audio system piped Civil War-era piano into the examining room, lending the lab a strangely dichotomous feel of the modern twenty-first century medical facility and the late nineteenth century, when you poured whiskey over a bullet wound and hoped for the best. He could picture himself in a saloon after the end of the Civil War at the same time as he stood in the white and stainless steel lab.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“He nearly staggered into his kitchen, thinking he must look like someone searching for a train car to sleep in after a hard day of writing hobo signs on poles and benches.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs

“At a clattering noise, Shawn looked up and saw that his captain was roaming and had backed up against a trash bin. Ashburn was easy to spot, with his shock of wavy gray hair and frequent careless flailing. His assistant, a silent and harried woman, scurried after him. She kept her hands out, ready for her boss's next inevitable disaster.”
― Nina Post, Danger Returns in Pairs