Quotes from Caleb Carr

How does the world look, I often found myself wondering, to a young man whose father is his enemy?

They'll want him to be mad, of course,' Laszlo mused, not hearing me. 'The doctors here, the newspapers, the judges; they'd like to think that only a madman would shoot a five-year-old girl in the head. It creates certain … difficulties, if we are forced to accept that our society can produce sane men who commit such acts.

We are not obligated to provide everyone who comes to this country with a good life," Morgan went on. "We are obligated to provide them with a chance to attain that life, through discipline and hard work. That chance is more than they have anywhere else. That is why they keep coming.

Whatever I thought right seemed bad to others; whatever seemed wrong to me, others approved of. I ran into feuds wherever I found myself, I met disfavor wherever I went; if I longed for happiness, I only stirred up misery; so I had to be called "Woeful": Woe is all I possess.

Both Kreizler and I had seen all this before, but familiarity did not breed acceptance.

Absolutely nothing brings out the killer instinct in the upper crust of New York Society like a charity function.

Still, it's an interesting technique--leaving one person behind in order to find her or him somewhere else. And *in* someone else.

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.

answers one gives to life's crucial questions are never truly spontaneous; they are the embodiment of years of contextual experience, of the building of patterns in each of our lives that eventually grow to dominate our behavior.

I believe half of a writer's job is to, really, take you to another world and give you a view of things, information about another world that entertains you and informs you.

I'd seen this happen several times before, in different institutions, but it was no less remarkable on each occasion: the words were like the flow of water over coals, taking away crackling heat and leaving only a steaming whisper, a perhaps momentary but nonetheless effective remission from deep-burning fire.

The hateful relationship between Japheth Dury and his mother must, we reasoned, have spilled over into self-hatred, as well—for how could any boy despised by his mother fail to question his own worth?

Revenge is a kind of wild justice; and the more man turns to it, the more the law ought to weed it out.' " Nodding

like the only hummable tune in a difficult opera.

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

Whatever poor team of maidservants had to stuff her into the kind of tight-waisted gown she was wearing that evening earned their pay as sure as any coal miner, that much was certain. The

I, like most of my friends, couldn't believe I bought a mountain called Misery Mountain, because it was so appropriate.

It is the greatest truth of our age: Information is not knowledge.

I feel horribly vindicated. Three thousand people died who didn't have to die.

I was a pretty angry kid, and I got into military history largely as a way to vent my own anger. As I got older it narrowed down to a more specific focus on individual violence. I'm just trying to understand where it came from.

I get in trouble when I say things like, 'I'm attracted to violence.' I was a pretty angry kid, and I got into military history largely as a way to vent my own anger. As I got older it narrowed down to a more specific focus on individual violence. I'm just trying to understand where it came from.

Every human being must find his own way to cope with severe loss, and the only job of a true friend is to facilitate whatever method he chooses