Books like The Rainmaker

We are all just ghosts of the people we hoped that we were and counterfeit replicas of the people we wanted to be.

Langdon had little doubt. His books on religious paintings and cult symbology had made him a reluctant celebrity in the art world, and last year Langdon’s visibility had increased a hundred-fold after his involvement in a widely publicized incident at the Vatican. Since then, the stream of self-important historians and art buffs arriving at his door had seemed never-ending.

You ate twenty chicken nuggets in about four minutes. It was like you were in an eating competition, but you were the only contestant. I’ve never been more in love with you.

Even if we’re not married anymore, it would be weird not to have it on my finger anymore. And frankly, it’s not his choice to make. It’s my finger.

With Madelaine curled up on the passenger seat, I lit another cigarette and rubbed my freezing bare feet so my toes could resume gripping the clutch and brake pedal. Clutch, gas, shift, release clutch, I chanted, trying to ignore the dog’s pitiful howls every time I accelerated. She alternated between crying, whining, and snorting. By the time we reached Miranda’s building, the pup was nearly hysterical. I tried to soothe her, but she could sense my insincerity—and besides, I had no free hands with which to offer a reassuring pat or nuzzle. So this was what four years of diagramming and deconstructing books, plays, short stories, and poems were for: a chance to comfort a small, white, batlike bulldog while trying not to demolish someone else’s really, really expensive car. Sweet life. Just as I had always dreamed.

“Nobody knows,” Sanders said. “Bob built the company from nothing, fifteen years ago. When he started, he was selling knockoff modems from Korea. Back when nobody knew what a modem was. Now the company’s got three buildings downtown, and big facilities in California, Texas, Ireland, and Malaysia. He builds fax modems the size of a dime, he markets fax and E-mail software, he’s gone into CD-ROMs, and he’s developed proprietary algorithms that should make him a leading provider in education markets for the next century. Bob’s come a long way from some guy hustling three hundred baud modems. I don’t know if he can give it up.”