Quotes from Ken Bruen

time doesn't pass. We pass.

Even Def Leppard couldn't get him out of his funk. When the Def couldn't crank you, it was way past time to shoot someone.

You'd test the patience of a saint.

There's always been books. All my bedraggled life, they've been the only constant. Even Sutton, my closest friend, had exclaimed, "What's with the fucking reading, man? You used to be a guard, for christsakes." Which is Irish logic at its finest. I'd said to him then and umpteen times since, "Reading transports me.

Dennis Wheatley

By the holy, Jack Taylor. I was beginning to think you were a rumor running around as a fact.

Roberts knocked, heard: 'Enter.' Thought: 'Wanker.

Jack Taylor was a private investigator in Galway, which seemed like madness. I used lots of Galway-isms, which seemed like madness, too.

I was a failed actor, but for 25 years, I got to go on stage anyway, and I loved it. I've still got the day job, and the travel bug.

I decided to write books, just to prove to myself that I was still alive, if nothing else.

Crime fiction is the new rock n' roll.

Whenever dark things happen in my life, there is always some dark humour.

My father believed a real man didn't read, and my parents hoped I'd get some sense and find a job in insurance.

After five awful movies, I admitted failure and said I was not cut out to be an actor. But how many people get a chance to live their dream?

We haven't had crime writers, and for a long time in the Republic, we didn't seem to have a crime problem as such.

The tourist board have put a bounty on me head, but they like the biz from tourists.

And so evil flourishes and spreads because decent people don't want to make a fuss.

Max couldn't believe he'd fallen for her. If he'd just had a thing for flat-chested women none of this would have happened.

Roberts had watched a documentary on Francis Bacon. He especially liked Bacon's cry when he entered a club in Soho: 'Champagne for my real friends. Real pain for my sham friends'.

I don't do sun. I'm delighted with the lack of rain and anything over is over-indulgence. I don't trust it. Makes you yearn. For things that cannot last.

remember what Billy Connolly said, that there isn't bad weather, only wrong clothes.

Existence is sometimes what a forward artillery observer sees of enemy lines through field glasses. A distant and troubling view brought suddenly into focus with a wealth of obscene detail. It

A mini-cab later and he arrived in Stockwell, where the pit bulls travelled in twos. Ludlow Road is near the tube station, a short mugging away.

It's always the same. When you come out of it and take a look around, the sight of wounds that you have left on the people who care for you makes you wince more than those you have inflicted on yourself. Though I am devoid of regret or remorse for almost anything I have done, if there is a corner for these feelings then it lies with that awareness. It should be enough to stop you from ever going back down there, but it seldom is. Anthony Loyd, My War Gone By, I Miss It So.