Quotes from Jim Bishop

What makes a good writer of history is a guy who is suspicious. Suspicion marks the real difference between the man who wants to write honest history and the one who'd rather write a good story.

A good writer is not, per se, a good book critic. No more so than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender.

A good writer of history is a guy who is suspicious.

The reporter is the daily prisoner of clocked facts. On all working days, he is expected to do his best in one swift swipe at each story.

Gimme: An agreement between two losers who can't putt.

It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.

We get so much in the habit of wearing a disguise before others that we eventually appear disguised before ourselves.

Scoops of mint ice cream with chips of chocolate cows.

When you read about a car crash in which two or three youngsters are killed, do you pause to dwell on the amount of love and treasure and patience parents poured into bodies no longer suitable for open caskets?

Golf is played by twenty million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun.

A good writer is not necessarily a good book critic. No more so than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender.

The future is an opaque mirror. Anyone who tries to look into it sees nothing but the dim outlines of an old and worried face.

True love is night jasmine, a diamond in darkenss, the heartbeat no cardiologist has ever heard. It is the most common of miracles, fashioned of fleecy clouds, a handful of stars tossed into the night sky.

Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.

Books, I found, had the power to make time stand still, retreat or fly into the future.

Nothing is as far away as one minute ago

Watching your daughter being collected by her date feels like handing over a million dollar Stradivarius to a gorilla.

It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.

God invented whiskey so the Irish wouldn't rule the world.

I can look at my books with pleasure from a distance. Four feet is close enough.

Yes, sir." "I don't know what the doctors are looking for, but they should be told that a pristine bullet has been found." The disorder of the apartment

bluntly, a transfer of power could hardly have occurred at a better time: there were no important decisions to be made; there was nothing of consequence for the new President to consider for the next couple of days.

Three weeks ago a man who had called himself Lee H. Oswald had rented Box 6225.

firm in Chicago called Klein's Sporting Goods was known to have sold the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle by magazine coupon. Chicago had been asked to track down Klein's management and, if necessary, to get them out of bed and try to locate a Dallas or New Orleans order from Lee Harvey Oswald, Lee Oswald, L. H. Oswald, Alex Hiddell, A. Hidell, or A. Hidel.