Quotes from Paul Levine

I've never been disbarred, committed or convicted of moral turpitude, and the only time I was arrested, it was a case of mistaken identity...I didn't know the guy I hit was a cop.

We all hold the keys to our own jail cells.

Solomon's Laws 1. When the law doesn't work...work the law.

Solomon's Laws: 8. If a guy who's smart, handsome, and rich invites you and your girlfriend to a nudist club...chances are he's got a giant shmeckel .

Justice requires lawyers who are prepared, witnesses who tell the truth, judges who know the law, and jurors who stay awake. Justice is the North Star, the burning bush, the holy virgin. It cannot be bought, sold, or mass produced. It is intangible, ineffable, and invisible, but if you are to spend your life in its pursuit, it is best to believe it exists, and that you can attain it.

T-shirt with the saying "I May Be Old, but I Got to See All the Cool Bands.

The people we've known the longest are often the people we know the least.

I've been ridiculed by silk-suited lawyers, jailed by ornery judges, and occasionally paid for services rendered. I never intended to be a hero, and I succeeded.

A good lawyer is part con man, part priest -- promising riches, threatening hell. My ethical rules are simple. I won't lie to the court or let a client do it. But I've never been in this position. How far would I go for a woman who mattered? Is there anything I wouldn't do to win?

At the prosecution table, Flagler gave me his Ivy League snicker. If I wanted, I could dangle him out the window by his ankles. But then, I was picking up penalties for late hits while he was singing tenor with the Whiffenpoofs. Okay, so I'm not Yale Law Review, but I'm proud of my diploma. University of Miami. Night division. Top half of the bottom third of my class.

All of us live with our own demons, do penance in our private ways. We need our friends for support and advice, but we draw our strength from within.

We keep looking for justice, but it's nothing but stormy nights and dark alleys out there.

In my experience, honest people don't need to put their hand on a Bible to tell the truth, and with dishonest people, it makes no difference.

The gods tempt us. They offer us riches and sweet smelling women, tres leches, each milk sweeter than the one before. But you cannot beat the gods. The grander house and the bigger deal only mean more borrowed time, more risk. When you build your life on a house of cards, you never know when the joker will turn up.

I'm a burger and brew guy in a paté and Chardonnay world. I'm as health conscious as the next guy, as long as the next guy is sitting on a bar stool. FALSE DAWN http://tinyurl.com/64qngk5

Mr. Lassiter, you know better than that," the judge said icily. He turned to the jury box. "The jury shall disregard Mr. Lassiter's last statement." I didn't mind the instruction. In my experience, jurors forget most everything I say, except what the judge tells them to disregard.

Men act as if we just crawled from the swamp, our webbed feet dripping brackish water as we waddle ashore, seeking to mate with a female or, lacking that, a warm patch of mud.

A lawyer who's afraid of jail is like a surgeon who's afraid of blood.

Nobody knows something about everything.

Modern life is one sweeping, cradle-to-grave invasion of privacy. An encroachment on our ever-narrowing space. Our footprints in the sand are a billion bytes on a thousand hard drives. Fodder for the snoop and the historian alike.

I could be wrong, but she seemed to be one of those anti-gluten, pro-yoga, organic wine bar, Generation-Y echo boomers. A Gwyneth Paltrow type who would name her first daughter Persimmon or whatever.

I hit every red light for fifty blocks heading east toward Coconut Grove. They're timed that way by our traffic planners, who might be getting kickbacks from the oil and tire companies.

We are a vain, greedy, and foolish people. We squander and spoil, befoul and defile. We take for granted the beauties and bounties of nature, but in the end nature will out. We will dry up or smoke out or choke on our own waste. In the end we will pay the ultimate price.

The acquisition of material things has become the hallmark of the shallow life.