Quotes from Robert B. Parker

me that the heart is slow to learn what the swift mind beholds at every turn.

we love who we love whether we should or not, even though there are more suitable people to love.

We don't ask other teachers about their sexual habits.

Attitude?" I said. "After I got you this lucrative gig?" "Go track down a criminal," Marty said. "Okay," I said. Adele smiled at me, though I think Marty had replaced me in her affections, or Vinnie, or maybe both. Inconstancy, thy name is Adele.

He who would be a man must be a nonconformist.

Do you have a first name, Mr. Spenser'?" Jill said. She had a soft girlish voice with just a hint of huskiness at the edges. I told her my first name.

I called Hawk on his cell phone. "Where are you?" I said. "Not your business," he said. "What are you doing." "Very not your business," he said. "Oh that," I said.

My champagne is gone. Do you think you are, if you'll pardon the phrase, up for another transport of ecstasy?

Susan made a large plate of ham sandwiches while we finished up our maps and we had them with coffee in front of the fire. "You make a good fire for a broad," I said to Susan. "It's easy," Susan said, "I rubbed two dry sexists together.

It was that juxtaposition of how it used to be with how it had turned out that made L.A. so interesting and so sad a place, I thought.

Pearl the Wonder Dog was asleep on her back, in the armchair next to the fireplace, with her feet sticking up in the air.

Condoize them for me, and I'd have income for

people trying to look like Eurotrash were sitting outside having various kinds of fancy coffee and looking at each other.

You know that you can't predict and you can't expect that you should have predicted. You do the best you can, as decently as you can, and you accept the consequences.

went to see Elmer O'Neill at his office in a converted gas station in Arlington. The gas pumps were gone, but the low concrete pedestal on which they'd once sat was still there. "I see what you mean about low overhead," I said when I went in. "Overhead any lower," Elmer said, "and I couldn't stand up straight.

I finished my New Amsterdam Black & Tan. I wanted another one, but I was used to that. I always wanted another one.

A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears. See how yon justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark in thine ear: change places and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? - King Lear

You need to be able to hear the truth, he thought. You can't hear the truth, you got nowhere to start.

Jeez, on those TV real-life cop shows they don't do this. They got all kinds of guys with microscopes and computers figuring shit out.' 'We're a small department,' Jesse said. 'We can't afford smart people.' 'This could be a total waste of time,' Simpson said. 'Ah,' Jesse said, 'you are beginning to understand the intricacies of police work.

drank more scotch. "Probably he wasn't alone," I said. "Probably not," Hawk murmured. "So," I said. "How you want to handle this?

A veritable circle jerk," Susan said. "Wow," I said, "you shrinks have a technical language all your own, don't you?" "Bet your ass," Susan said. "Do you know the identity of the third snoop?

The rich really are very different," Tyler Costigan was saying. "Especially if they are also unscrupulous." ... "They have always gotten what they wished, and after a while they think they are supposed to. If they have a problem they hire someone to solve it. And they become ever more contemptuous of people who cannot. They even become contemptuous of people who have problems. And eventually they are contemptuous of everyone and care only about what they want.

Darrin and Lance," he said. "The love that dare not speak its name?" I drank some beer. "This will give rise to considerable speculation on our part," I said. "I thought it might," Hawk said. "That's why I wanted two pizzas." "I'll get right on it," I said and reached for the phone.

How do you do," I said. "My name is Spenser." "Of course I know your name," she said. "How do you think I got here?" "I thought you looked up handsome in the phone book," I said. "And my picture was there." She smiled for the first time that morning. "Well," she said. "Maybe you are a little bit handsome in a rough sort of way." "Tough," I said. "But sensitive.