Quotes from James Lee Burke

The last bartender I called had picked me up out of an alley behind a B-girl joint in Lafayette's old Underpass area, a one-block collection of buildings that was so stark and unrelieved, whose inhabitants were so lost and disconnected from the normal world, that if you found yourself drinking there, you could rest assured you had finally achieved the goal you long ago set for yourself: the total destruction of the innocent child who once lived inside you.

He sought revenge on others for his own failure, and helped inculcate racial hatred and fear in the electorate to divide us against ourselves.

to try and preempt the rites of passage is an act of contempt for the child's courage.

arguing with others is folly and the knowledge of one generation cannot be passed down to the next. Those may seem cynical sentiments, but there are certain truths you keep inside you and do not defend lest you cheapen and then lose them altogether.

How many lives would have been spared had we not lent ourselves to the defense of a repellent cause like slavery?

But I don't fear him, and that's because I have never known a bully who was not a coward.

But I was falling prey to that old self-serving notion that well-intended rhetoric can remove a stone bruise from the soul.

So the madness in war was an area that was sacrosanct, not even to be recognized, and there was no correlation between that and the death of your best friends because of corporate stupidity.

The breeze smelled of rain falling from clouds that had drawn water out of the Gulf and fish eggs out of the wetlands; it smelled of newly mowed grass and sprinklers striking warm concrete and charcoal starter flaring on a grill; it smelled of chrysanthemums blooming in gardens dark with shadow, telling us that the season was not yet done, that life was still a party and should not be surrendered prematurely to the coming of night.

that indeed there is no greater theft than that of time.

I could see the uncertainty, the fear about her job, her paycheck, her relationship with her boss, the prospect of offending people with power and authority over others, the dark figure sitting in the shadows at the end of the bar when it's closing time. I wondered how many people would understand her frame of reference.

You know what they say at [Alcoholics Anonymous] meetings. Coincidence is your Higher Power acting with anonymity.' 'I didn't know you were in the program.' 'I'm not. I go for the dialogue. It's great material.

Maggie's face darkened, as

The great gift of age is the realization that each morning is a blessing, as votive in nature as a communion wafer raised to the sky. I made a habit of letting the world go on a daily basis, but unfortunately, it didn't want to let go of me.

Time had removed him and it would not allow him to go back.

from which I had graduated in 1960 with a teacher's certificate and a degree in English.

was the kind of evening that people of my generation associate with a more predictable era, one that may have been unjust in many ways but possessed a far greater level of civility and trust and shared sense of virtue that, for good or bad, seemed to define who we were. It

The recidivists think their rap sheets have the historical importance of the Magna Carta; their jailhouse tats are the equivalent of military citations.

eyes like light trapped in sherry

I didn't intend to hurt her. But when you deal with those who have chosen to inflict great harm on themselves and their loved ones on a daily basis, whatever you say to them about the reality of their lives will either prove inadequate or offend them deeply, and leave you with feelings of guilt and depression. It's not unlike walking through cobweb.

What kind of trees are those? I asked. Heartwood, my father said. They grow in layers, like the spirit does. That's what Grandpa Sam used to say, anyway. You just got to keep the roots in a clear stream and not let nobody taint the water for you.

You hate rich people, Dave.

Frankly, I don't care what happens to your father, Varina. He's an ignorant, stupid man, a racist, and a bully who molested black women and jailed and beat their men. His sin lies not in his ignorance and stupidity but in his choice to stay ignorant and stupid.

I don't like to bust drunk drivers. I don't like to listen to their explanations, watch their pitiful attempts to affect sobriety, or see the sheen of fear break out in their eyes when they realize they're headed for the drunk tank with little to look forward to in the morning except the appearance of their names in the newspaper. Or maybe in truth I just don't like to see myself when I look into their faces.