Quotes from Dennis Lehane

People were lost and people were scared and their lynch ropes couldn't reach bankers or stockbrokers, so they looked for targets closer to home.

We all die alone...... I could have helped her with the dying.

for a moment, distant. "It's what you do," Teddy said softly. "Sure," Chuck said eventually, his face still flushed. The dock appeared as

She was guilty, after all, of success, a success that stemmed from birthright and privilege. She took hope for granted, saw opportunity as her due, and had never really had to worry about vanishing into a sea of unseen faces and unseen voices.

Another long pull of the sawteeth across the pink folds of his brain, and Teddy had to bite down against a scream and he heard Rachel's screams in there too with the fire and he saw her looking into his eyes and felt her breath on his lips and felt her face in his hands as his thumbs caressed her temples and that fucking saw went back and forth through his head— don'ttakethosefuckingpills

The sun was beginning to fade, though, and the air - slightly chilled as it slid through the trees - carried with it just the barest hint of rain.

I open up—" Cawley again: "Using your keys, correct, Mr. Ganton?" Ganton nodded at Cawley, looked back at his knees. "I use my keys, yeah, 'cause the door's locked.

Cawley probably wasn't used to questions that continued after he'd shown displeasure with them, so they gave him a minute to catch his breath.

She should have a ride named after her at Epcot, man.

Luther had passed many a white church in his day, heard them singing their hymns and chanting their Amens and seen them gather on a porch or two afterward with their lemonade and piety, but he knew if he ever showed up on their steps, starving or injured, the only response he'd get to a plea for human kindness would be the amen of a shotgun pointed in his face.

A complaint that's not looking for a solution is a disease that's not looking for a cure.

Cruelty is older than the Bible. Savagery beat its chest in the first human summer and has kept beating it every day since. The worst in men is commonplace. The best is a far rarer thing.

He understood people a little too well, and the knowledge made him nervous.

And she was-definitely-a woman who did not shrink from gauntlets, but stepped up to them, and said, Okay, bring it. Bring your worst. I will get back up. Every time. I will not shrivel and die. So watch out.

It's an island, boss. They'll always find us." Teddy met Chuck's eyes and nodded. For the first time since they'd met, he could see fear in Chuck's eyes, his jaw trying to tighten against it.

he'd never believed that power, in any shape or form, was anything more than the intemperate protrusion on the egomaniacal heart. Since all egomaniacs were insecure to their frightened cores, they this weilded power barbarically so the world would not find them out

When she found his eyes, hers were fuller and sharper, lit with something that had entered the world centuries before civilized things. "I get off at midnight," she said.

He knew her. He knew her, this man she'd married, this man she'd committed herself to walking through this life with. He knew her. And—wonder of wonders—he was still here.

Maybe I'd move to Tibet, climb a mountain with the Dalai Lama or head to Paris and wear nothing but black, grow myself a keen goatee and talk about jazz all the time. Or maybe I'd do what I always do - hang out and see what develops. Fatalist to the core.

and two men standing up top, weeping like children because they'd somehow never known the world could get this bad.

He had a punch like a bag full of cue balls.

all he wanted was to not be alone, but he knew there was no getting rescued from that

In his time on earth, he'd learned one truth above all else when it came to power—those who lost it usually didn't see it vanishing until it was already gone.

At that moment, Dave would have lifted a house for Jimmy, held it up to his chest until Jimmy told him where to put it down.