Quotes from James Lee Burke

and began making coffee without asking permission.

Her fingers were as light and cool as refrigerated air, and she did something no girl or woman had ever done to me before. She leaned over and kissed each of my eyelids and my mouth, then continued to stroke my hair with her nails until I felt myself drifting away, free of all pain and age, free of the evil that undid Eden and set brother against brother and left us forever wounded and benighted and at war with ourselves and the earth.

The band played "La Jolie Blon" a second time. For me, there is no more haunting ballad in the world. Its origins go back to the eighteenth century, but the rendition by Harry Choates is the one that never leaves you.

They dusted off the electroshock machine, wired me up, and made blue sparks jump off my Johnson. I was definitely in the spirit when they pulled them electrodes of my head, yes sir. Electroshock isn't used anymore. They said in my case they was making an exception, although they didn't give me no explanation on that. Put me naked in an isolation cell and hosed me down with ice-cold water, too, he said...

Besides, isn't it better to let evil die inside its own flame?

the crowd, bathed in light, his posture and trim

The woman considered the wisest person in old New Orleans was a witch by the name of Marie LeVeau.

resolution by itself is not enough; we are what we do, not what we think and feel.

Jennifer, some people is suppose' to have only what other people let them have.' Lord God, her age and white and believing somet'ing like that.

They see what they need to see. Black folk cain't be choicy. They see what they gots to see.

I was not simply tired of the world's iniquity. I was tired of greed in particular and the ostentatious display of wealth that characterizes our times, and the justifications for despoiling the earth and injuring our fellow man.

Joe Molinari's role in life had been being used by others, as consumer and laborer and voter and minion, which, in the economics of the world I grew up in, was considered normal by both the liege lord in the manor and the serf in the field.

Night Comes to the Cumberland.

I stood under the portico of the main house and rang the chimes. The day had already turned warm, but it was cool in the shade and the air smelled of damp brick and four-o'clock flowers and the mint that grew under the water faucets

The advantage of having a little knowledge about the classical world is that few other people do. The second advantage is your awareness that every problem facing us today has already occurred many times previously, and the behavior of the players is always predictable and the consequences are always the same.

AT NOON I found Clete sitting at the bar in Clementine's, a po'boy fried-oyster sandwich on a plate in front of him, a Bloody Mary in a big tumbler with a celery stalk stuck in it by his elbow.

Gretchen, talent doesn't have anything to do with a person's background or education. Did you ever see Amadeus? It's the story of Mozart and his rivalry with Antonio Salieri. Salieri hated Mozart because he thought God had given this great talent to an undeserving idiot. Talent isn't earned, it's given. It's like getting hit by lightning in the middle of a wet pasture. People don't sign up for it.

The waiter brought him a bowl of gumbo. Clete dipped the end of his po'boy sandwich into the bowl and began eating, drinking from his Bloody Mary, filling his mouth with French bread, oysters, lettuce and tomatoes, red sauce, and mayonnaise, stopping only long enough to wipe his chin with a white napkin.

Louisiana is not a state; it's an outdoor mental asylum in which millions of people stay bombed most of their lives. That's not an exaggeration. Cirrhosis is a family heirloom.

What we do is punish the people who are available," she said.

Saints don't heed warnings because they consider them irrelevant. Fools don't heed them because they think the lightning dancing across the sky, the thunder rolling through the woods, are only there to enhance their lives in some mysterious way.

beautiful street in the Western world.

crowd again. "I think we blew an opportunity. But maybe

I didn't mind being alone. Solitude and peace with oneself are probably the only preparation one has for death.