Quotes from Caleb Carr

great sport, during their few idle hours, of sitting in the house's green-shuttered windows and watching the doings at headquarters through opera glasses, then offering commentary to passing police officials.

The Career and Death of the Mad Thief and Murderer, Samuel Green.

A noi fa piacere che uomini come Beecham esistano: essi incarnano tutto ciò che vi è di oscuro nel nostro mondo, nella nostra società. Ma le cose che hanno fatto di Beecham un mostro? Bè, quelle le tolleriamo, anzi, ne godiamo...

troubled than my own—had fallen off a Boston boat and drowned. A lengthy autopsy revealed what I could have

could never have turned his back on human society, nor society on him, and why? Because he was—perversely, perhaps, but utterly—tied to that society. He was its offspring, its sick conscience—a living reminder of all the hidden crimes we commit when we close ranks to live among each other. He craved human society, craved the chance to show people what their 'society' had done to him. And the odd thing is, society craved him, too.

but as anybody who's ever been involved with the law will tell you, facts aren't always or even usually what decides a case.

It isn't really possible for men to understand how much the world doesn't want women to be complete people. The most important thing a woman can be, in our society—more important, even, than honest or decent—is identifiable.

intersection of Broadway and Houston Street. Here, it was once sagely remarked, you could fire a shotgun in any direction without hitting an honest man;

Change isn't something most people enjoye, even if it's progressive change.

He's a journalist. They come in two varieties, cynics and liars.

Well, you just catch me where I go wrong," I shoot back, "but a Harvard education hasn't done much to get your little manuscript out to the world.

most men consider their rationally selected actions are in fact idiosyncratic responses that have grown strong enough, through repeated use, to overpower other urges and reactions—that have won, in other words, the mental battle for survival.

P198 Describe John Moore's brother's death: but at heart I believe now, as I believed then, that it was essentially the result of growing up in a household, and a world, where emotional expression of any kind was at best frowned on and at worst strangled. Unfortunately, I'd stated this opinion during the funeral, and was nearly forced into an asylum as a result.

but it was one of those all-too-common moments in New York when one is faced with a damnable set of options.

John!" my grandmother blared as Harriet nodded in confusion. "Is that you?" "No, Grandmother," I said, trotting down the thick Persian carpet on the stairs. "It's Dr. Holmes.

Of course, the defenders of decent society and the disciples of degeneracy are often the same people

Scientists' minds may jump around like amorous toads, but they do seem to accept such behavior in one another.

Habit dooms us all to fight out the battle of life upon the lines of our nurture or our early choice, and to make the best of a pursuit that disagrees, because there is no other for which we are fitted, and it is too late to begin again.

I had never been able when there to fully elude the awareness that I was surrounded by thieves and killers, each of whom had a very good explanation for his or her acts but none of whom gave the impression of being willing to put up with questionable behavior from anyone else ever again.

You know, Mr. Moore, you wouldn't figure a stinkhole this city to have so many start over it. Seems like the smell'd be enough to drive 'em away...

the eminent physician and alienist, my good friend Dr. Laszlo Kreizler.

Precisely—the bodies were a mirror image of some savage set of experiences that were central to the evolution of our man's mind.

P252 Habit dooms us all to fight out the battle of life upon the lines of our nurture or our early choice, and to make the best of a pursuit that disagrees, because there is no other for which we are fitted, and it is too late to begin again.

but none of whom gave the impression of being willing to put up with questionable behavior from anyone else ever again.