Quotes from Michael Connelly

He knew there were two kinds of truth in this world. The truth that was the unalterable bedrock of one's life and mission. And the other, malleable truth of politicians, charlatans, corrupt lawyers, and their clients, bent and molded to serve whatever purpose was at hand.

It's only a wonderful world if you can make it that way. There are no street signs pointing to Paradise Road.

it's like the laws of physics—for every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. If you go into darkness, the darkness goes into you. You then have to decide what to do with it. How to keep yourself safe from it. How to keep it from hollowing you out.

Nobody in this world is who they say they are. Nobody. Not when they're in their own room with the door shut and locked. And nobody knows anybody, no matter what they think... The best you can hope for is to know yourself. And sometimes when you do, when you see your true self, you have to turn away.

The good ones all had that hollow space inside. The empty place where the fire always burns. For something. Call it justice. Call it the need to know. Call it the need to believe that those who are evil will not remain hidden in darkness forever.

Whatever made her happy made me happy—except the time she thought divorcing me would make her life happier. That didn't do much for me.

Politicians could talk about building walls and changing laws to keep people out, but in the end they were just symbols. Neither would stop the tide any more than the rock jetties at the mouth of the port did. Nothing could stop the tide of hope and desire. Bosch

Loneliness had been the trash can fire he huddled around for most of his life.

Artists are supposed to stay hungry." "That's bullshit. That's a myth invented to keep the artist down because art is powerful. You give an artist both money and power and they're dangerous.

Innocence is not a legal term. No one is ever found innocent in a court of law.

There is a means to every end. A root to any cause. Sometimes the root is more evil than any cause, though it's the cause that is usually most vilified.

Eenie, meenie, minie, moe, catch a killer by the toe. If his lawyer's Haller, let him go. Eenie, meenie, minie, moe. Hey bro.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

There are plenty of people out there judging us every day of our lives and for every move we make. The gods of guilt are many.You don't need to add to them

Everybody's got a cage that keeps out the sharks. Those who open the door and venture out do so at their own risk.

The civilized people in the world, the ones who hide behind culture and art and politics… and even the law, they're the ones to watch out for. They've got that perfect disguise goin' for them, you know? But they're the most vicious. They're the most dangerous people on earth.

Reasonable Doubt for a Reasonable Fee. Call the Lincoln Lawyer. Bosch

There was still chicken on the bone but sometimes you just have to push the plate away.

Everybody has a jury, the voices they carry inside.

The bag was a hybrid I had picked up at a store called Suitcase City while I was plotting my comeback. [...] It had a logo on it -- a mountain ridgeline with the words Suitcase City printed across it like the Hollywood sign. Above it, skylights swept the horizon, completing the dream image of desire and hope. I think that logo was the real reason I liked the bag. Because I knew Suitcase City wasn't a store. It was a place. It was Los Angeles.

It had been Bosch's experience that when you looked back at a life, you used a magnifying glass. Everything was bigger, amplified.

Livingstone had said sympathy was no substitute for action. That was an essential brick in Bosch's wall. He had built himself as a man of action and, at the moment when the integrity of his life's work had been called into question by a man on death row, he had chosen to turn his sympathy for Elizabeth Clayton into action.

there is a light that never goes out

Bosch counted twenty-two names and it made him miss the old Los Angeles Times. In 1993 it was big and strong, its editions fat with ads and stories produced by a staff of some of the best and brightest journalists in their field. Now the paper looked like somebody who had been through chemo—thin, unsteady, and knowing the inevitable could only be held off for so long.