Quotes from John Connolly

Books are constantly changing the world. If you're a Christian, you have been changed by the Bible, by the word of God, or what was left of it when it was finally wrung through the hands of men. If you are a Muslim, look to the Koran; if a Communist, to Marx and Engels. Don't you see? This world is constantly being altered by books.

At the Oceana Apartments, he recollects leaving England in triumph, infused with a joy he has not felt in many years. England has reinvigorated them. England has given them hope. But hope is a candle. Hope burns, and then it is gone.

Wickedness never rests easily so, in a way, one might almost feel pity for the wicked, for they are destined to live their lives in fear, in a prison of the heart.

You cannot perform acts of evil in the name of a greater good, because the good suffers. It is corrupted by what has been done in its name.

Then again, maybe nostalgia was an understandable response to a world that appeared to be going all to hell, as long as everyone remembered that the past was a nice place to visit but nobody should want to settle in it. One

A discarded newspaper skimmed the sidewalk with a sound like the whisperings of a dead lover.

What's seldom is wonderful.

I met Hamlet at a number 48B bus stop," said Mr. Gedeon. "He'd been there for some time, poor chap. At least eight buses had passed him by, and he hadn't taken any of them. It's to be expected, I suppose. It's in his nature.

Contentment is a very underrated feeling, but you only learn that as you get older, and with it comes regret that it took you so long to realize what you'd been missing.

Hold him till we get there, comrade," said another, who then appeared to reconsider. "Hang on, how big is he?" The dwarf examined David. "Not very big," he said. "Dwarf and a half. Dwarf and two-thirds at most.

The past never truly dies. It is there, waiting, just below the surface of the now.

But no one on either side ever forgot that the law was white. Justice might be blind, but the law wasn't. Justice was aspirational, but the law was actual. The law was real. It had uniforms, and weapons. It smelt of sweat and tobacco. It drove a big car with a star on the door. White people had justice. Black folks had the law.

They were called "rooms," but it was still a cell. A room you could leave when you chose to do so; a cell you could not.

Although it was cold out, he opened the window slightly because the room smelled of sleep. The action dislodged something red and black from the frame

Come on," I said a third time, to the approaching darkness, to the figures that beckoned from within it, to the peace that comes at last to every dead thing.

War merely gives people an excuse to indulge themselves further, to murder with impunity. There were wars before it, and there will be wars after it, and in between people will still fight one another and hurt one another and maim one another and betray one another, because that is what they have always done.

People suffered all the time, and died badly. Many called on God to save them at the end, but if God heard their pleas, He chose not to answer. Maybe the pastor was wrong. Maybe God was imperfect, and men, by acting in their own interests, were reflecting only the reality of His nature.

I made you do nothing, Jonathan," replied the Crooked Man. "You did it because you wanted to. No one can make you do evil. You had evil inside you, and you indulged it. Men will always indulge it.

I don't think you can dial 911 for a literary emergency.

It never paid to underestimate children.

So you're British?' said Billy. 'I think of myself as English first, British second. It's a way of keeping the Scots and Welsh at a distance, never mind the Irish.

Cresil leaned forward, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints of hate.

These were the tales that echoed in the head long after the books that contained them were cast aside.

En cada adulto mora el niño que fue, y en cada niño espera el adulto que será.