He runs his eye along the row of knives in their racks, the cleavers for splitting bones. He picks one up, looks at its edge, decides it needs sharpening and says, 'Do you think I look like a murderer? In your good opinion?'A silence. After a while, Thurston proffers, 'At this moment, master, I would have to say...

But have a care! It is a bitter blade, and steel serves only those that can wield it. It will cut your hand as willingly as aught else.

Oblige me by taking away that knife. I can't look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history.

But maybe you never really had someone, she thought now. Maybe, no matter how much you loved them, they could slip through your fingers like water, and there was nothing you could do about it. She understood why people talked about hearts 'breaking'; she felt as if hers were made of cracked glass, and the shards were like tiny knives inside her chest when she breathed.

Then he looked back to me, and smiled. It was a terrible expression, filled with edges, and with knives.

Other girls play with soft toys,” I said, “and you play with knives….

I have seen purer liquors, better segars, finer tobacco, truer guns and pistols, larger dirks and bowie knives, and prettier courtesans here in San Francisco than in any other place I have ever visited; and it is my unbiased opinion that California can and does furnish the best bad things that are available in America.

I am an ordinary sort of fellow, not braver than other people, but I hate to see a good man downed, and that long knife would not be the end of Scudder if I could play the game in his place.

A woman who goes around wearing a knife is obviously looking for trouble.' She reached deep into her pocket and brought out a long, slender piece of metal, glittering all along one edge. 'However a woman who carries a knife is ready for trouble. Generally speaking, it's easier to appear harmless. It's less trouble all around.

You are a cool cemetery.You have the sinner’s graveYou have the saint’s earthcollidingYou have all the bedsnarrow as a knife;as if a rally of tombstones to defend death.But you can’t really postponethe inauguration of my burial,can you?From the poem - Few Words to Cemetery.