Quotes from Paul Levine

but I'm a trial lawyer, damn it. In the legal system, not everything is black-and-white. I make my living in the gray.

Cops and firemen are, without doubt, the horniest bastards on the planet.

Not much of a day for sight-seeing," Pamela said, "but that's Trafalgar Square off to the right." I looked over my shoulder and caught sight of the National Gallery on one side and Buckingham Palace on the other and figured I had filled my culture quota for the trip.

Our reputation is created out of earshot.

Eres tú flor carnal de mi jardin ideal.

Until I come up with something better, the hammer defense." "Huh?" "Classic legal strategy, Nash. If the law is on your side, hammer the law. If the facts are on your side, hammer the facts. If neither is on your side, hammer the table.

trial lawyer's best friend, scurrilous innuendo.

Reporters rely on what people tell them. A woman claims she was the lover of a president. The story is accurate, because she said it, but where's the truth? A spokesman for the tobacco industry claims there's no proven link between smoking and lung cancer. Religious fanatics ignore all science and maintain that the Earth is only six thousand years old. So rule number one, the news is filled with accurate lies.

Life, I would later learn, is a raging river tumbling over jagged rocks, most of which are never seen. There are no signs warning of broken bones or broken promises or broken hearts. Some of us get knocked off our flimsy rafts. Others cling to the straps with utter desperation. Either way, the journey's end is the same. The river surges toward a roaring falls, unforgiving and unsurvivable.

A prosecutor is a stolid carpenter who patiently hammers his wood into place as he builds a house, one board at a time. A defense lawyer is a nihilistic vandal who finds the support beam and pulls down the house before it's complete.

A shark without teeth is just a mermaid.

Now, I've been using the term choked a little loosely," I said to the jurors. "You'll hear testimony from a physician that what the defendant used was a 'vascular hold,' a grip to cut off the flow of blood from arteries to the brain. Police departments used to do this to restrain unruly suspects… until the suspects started dying.

Mi pasión es rumor de un palmar." As Victoria led him into the hut, Steve murmured: "My passion is the whispering of palm trees.

he said "Miami" left the impression of Sodom-by-the-Sea.

What do you think it's worth, Lassiter, finding and returning the priceless heritage of a nation?" "How about a Boy Scout merit badge and a thank-you note from Yeltsin?" Above us

Philosophers and poets may be truth seekers. Lawyers only want to win.

Lately she'd been charting Bobby's moods like a meteorologist watching tropical storms. Something was bothering him, and he wasn't talking.

Men generally don't do any self-examining unless they get criticized by a woman first.

go hence without day.

One general is wearing a bright red cape, and the other asks him why such an outfit on a day of battle. 'Because, if I'm wounded, my troops won't see the blood, and they'll fight on.' The first general thinks about it and calls to his aide, 'Fritz, bring my brown trousers.

You can pour syrup on a turd, but that don't make it a pancake.

She expertly sliced open a ripe mango, then twisted the pit until it popped out of the fruit.

When I was a kid, Granny filled a bushel basket with her do's and don'ts. She taught me never to start a fight but to know how to end one. To be wary of the rich and powerful. And to go through life doing the least damage possible. Thanks to her, I favor the underdog. I root against the Yankees, the Lakers, and the Patriots. If Germany invaded Poland—again—I'd take the points and go with the Poles.

Shakespeare said only our bad deeds live after us," Victoria, the smart one, said. "The good is oft interred with their bones.