" If an eighty-six-year-old woman has been clear-seeing from a young age, she will have gone through a lot of life developing a keen eye for snares and pitfalls, an ear for deceit, and a good nose for knavery. And by such an age, a smart woman with no illusions is one to whom courage comes far more readily than it does to those young people who don't yet know the world for what it is. "

― Dean Koontz , Deeply Odd (Odd Thomas, #6)