In a California desert town, a short-order cook with clairvoyant abilities encounters a mysterious man with a link to dark, threatening forces.

[first lines]
Odd Thomas: My name is Odd Thomas, though in this age when fame is the alter at which most people worship, I'm not sure why you should care.
[last lines]
Odd Thomas: That will be a long wait, but I am a patient man, and I have much to do.
Odd Thomas: Have I ever told you you've got a lot of issues?
Stormy Llewellyn: I'm a woman. We all have issues. It's what keeps us interesting and you men interested.
Odd Thomas: Oh, yeah. It's what keeps us crazy and die younger.
Stormy Llewellyn: Do you love me?
Odd Thomas: I love you more than life itself.
Stormy Llewellyn: See? It's working.
Odd Thomas: I find it funny how I know more about dead people than dead people. This is our realm, Bob. You can't physically harm a living person.
[Fungus Bob starts shaking the whole house]
Odd Thomas: But there is THAT.
Odd Thomas: Fate is not a straight road. There are many forks in it. You have the free will to choose which one you take, but sometimes it will bend around and bring you straight back to that same stubborn fate.
Odd Thomas: A part of me knew, from the moment I saw her behind the ice cream counter, but the truth hurt too much to accept. Her death would have been one wound too many that day, and I think I would have let go of this life.
Odd Thomas: There's something about a dead man trying to get a laugh that just bugs me. Perhaps because it suggests that, even in death, we still have a pathetic need to be liked - as well as the ever-present ability to humiliate ourselves.
Odd Thomas: Her blood is in your pocket. Most people would think that's a weird thing to say, but you don't think it's very weird, do you, Harlo?
Chief Wyatt Porter: I can't hold him.
Odd Thomas: All right, well, you do agree that he's strange and suspicious, right?
Chief Wyatt Porter: If strange and suspicious were enough to put someone in jail, you'd already be there.
Odd Thomas: If I'm caught, I'll either be arrested for murder or rolling what looks like the biggest joint ever.
Chief Wyatt Porter: Son, you so complicate my life.
Harlo Landerson: Whoa! Hey, hey. Come on, man. No touchy, no feely. Sorry, but I love this car.
Odd Thomas: I know. It's too bad a car can't love you back.
Stormy Llewellyn: If the chief is using you as bait, he should at least ask if you mind having a hook in your ass.
Odd Thomas: I may see dead people, but, by God, I do something about it.
Officer Simon Varner: Now, Officer Eckles, does being a police officer give you the right to beat the shit out of people?
Officer Bern Eckles: Not at all, Officer Varner, but it is one of the perks of the job.
Odd Thomas: [voiceover] Stormy always believed that life is not about how fast you run or with what degree of grace, that this life is a boot camp, that we must persevere through all the obstacles and hardships to earn our way into the next life. To be with her again, I will have the perseverance of a bulldog - but sometimes it seems to me the training is unnecessarily painful.
Odd Thomas: I am not afraid of Death. Course, I'm not ready to go on a date with him, either.
Stormy Llewellyn: I see you left your hormone spigot running, griddle boy. Crank it shut. This is church.
Odd Thomas: Not every word we use is diner lingo. Whoa! Just as not every short-order cook is an undercover detective for dead people.
Odd Thomas: [smashing through a door with a cement block] Knock, knock.