Quotes from Jonathan Santlofer

A year earlier my parents had moved us out of the city to a split-level on Long Island, their idea of the American dream, which meant it as now an hour-and-a-half commute via the 7:06 Hicksville to Penn Station every morning. (Dark City Lights)

Baine lunged, grabbing hold of the guy's arm. Baine lunged, grabbing hold of the guy's arm, but the guy fired, once, twice, and Baine fell. But the gun fell too, just enough time for me to fire, and I did, again and again, until the gun was out of bullets.

Each day I drove from my little house in Venice, California, up along Pacific Street and down California Street, onto the Pacific Coast Highway and up the winding coastline to Topanga Canyon, then up the mountain pass to Jackson's house, nestled behind a gigantic grove of big bamboo, all the while high as a goose.

reminded him of Paul Cézanne's words about seeing in nature the cone, sphere, and cylinder, words that Picasso and Braque, even his old friend Max

RACHEL SHTEIR is the author of three nonfiction books, most recently The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting.

Connard!—T'es un salaud!—Va te faire foutre!

He sat back, dropped heavily into his gold Platner chair.

Now there's a good course title, 'The Mystery in Art History.' It even rhymes.

took in the unfinished paintings. Strong and colorful, filled with promise and an inner logic that helps lift them above ordinary abstractions, so said the New York Times four years ago, the time of my last exhibition. So what had happened to all that promise?

Perry suspected that his great-grandfather had probably been a hard man: back then, union organizers had had their skulls broken, and had broken skulls in turn. These days they were the whipping boys for everything that was wrong with the economy, as though the days of child labor and dismissal without cause had never happened.

For Perry, the absence of his daughter in his day-to-day life was like an open wound, an emptiness in his being that erupted in agony with even the softest touch of memory.

According to INTERPOL's statistics, art theft alternated between the agency's number three and four spots in priority and importance, just below drug dealing, arms smuggling, and money laundering.

We lose the things we do not cherish enough, his one thought, his only thought, as he slips into his workman's tunic, buttons it over his street clothes, and opens the closet door.

You speak to Quattrocchi and he's dead. You visit Étienne Chaudron and he's dead—" "I don't know anything about that!" I bolted up, knocking my chair to the floor.

not to a baby when

Chaudron knew his forgeries would be examined under a microscope and the latest infrared X-ray. This hidden imagery would make it appear that each forgery was indeed authentic.