Quotes from William Kent Krueger

is the way and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.

She kept secrets, her own and those told to her. I guess you'd call it integrity

The devil's best defense is a person's disbelief in his existence.

He was no stranger to brutal death. Both as sheriff and as a cop on Chicago's south side, he'd seen his share of dying. Murder, accident, overdose - it happened in many ways, but the end was the same. Something sad and confusing left behind. Only the shape of life, only the empty outline.

embrace the journey that I find peace. My tale of the four orphans who set sail together on an odyssey isn't quite finished. Their lives went far beyond the rolling farmlands and high bluffs and river towns and remarkable people they encountered on their meanderings that summer. Here is the end of the story begun many pages ago, an accounting of where the greater

Life's stranger and more beautiful than I ever thought possible.

There was no point in looking again. He [Cork] knew that. No point except to feed the coldness inside him. In a strange way, that was exactly what he wanted now. He wanted to feed himself to the cold until the cold had consumed him and he didn't care anymore.

In this moment, here and now, we celebrate the spirit of what is good in each of us and in those friends who stood with us in the dark and chased away death's shadow." He lifted his eyes to the night sky. "We give thanks to the Creator and we pray that in the battle between love and fear, which is always raging in the human heart, love will triumph.

Even in the darkest night it's still within our power to hold to faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may ourselves feel unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God.

sometimes the only way a man learns the true spirit of a rock is to stub his toe on it.

faith, to embrace hope, and to bear your love before you like a burning candle, for I promise that it will light your way. "And whether you believe in miracles or not, I can guarantee that you will experience one. It may not be the miracle you've prayed for. God probably won't undo what's been done. The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day. "Jesus

And what is happiness, Nathan? In my experience, it's only a moment's pause here and there on what is otherwise a long and difficult road. No one can be happy all the time. Better, I think, to wish for her wisdom, a virtue not so fickle." "Nf-six," my father said hesitantly.

The air was still, like a held breath.

I won't try to argue you out of this pit you've climbed into, Cork.

And there it was again, the magic of music.

Why would I be angry? Because they believe a thing does not make it so. There is no dignity in anger. But I am also not a kicked dog.

I sat on the steps of my father's church thinking how much I loved the dark. The taste of what it offered sweet on the tongue of my imagination. The delicious burn of trespass on my conscience. I was a sinner. I knew that without a doubt. But I was not alone. And the night was the accomplice of us all.

God's right here. In the dirt, the rain, the sky, the trees, the apples, the stars in the cottonwoods. In you and me, too. It's all connected and it's all God. Sure this is hard work, but it's good work because it's a part of what connects us to this land, Buck. This beautiful, tender land.

I'll tell you what I think defines greatness. The ability and willingness to perform in extraordinary ways.

I loved the dark. The taste of what it offered sweet on the tongue of my imagination. The de licious burn of trespass on my conscience. I was a sinner. I knew that without a doubt. But I was not alone. And the night was the accomplice of us all.

I've come four decades since but I'm not sure that even now I fully understand. I still spend a lot of time thinking about the events of that summer. About the terrible price of wisdom. The awful grace of God.

The day was hot and windless and the sky a hard china blue and I lay alone on the railroad bridge and cried my heart out above a river that seemed to have none.

I know love. So if it's true, like Sister Eve says, that God is love, then I guess I believe.

I was born along with the sun and earth and moon and planets and all the stars. Every atom of my being was there at the very beginning.