Quotes from Dennis Lehane

She's only forty-two, which, okay, when she was twelve seemed like one foot over the threshold into God's waiting room, but now, living it, is an age that makes her feel no different than she always has. She's twelve, she's twenty-one, she's thirty-three, she's all the ages at the same time. But she isn't aging. Not in her heart. Not in her mind's eye

He's happy. And isn't that the worst of all possible outcomes?

If it's ever within your power to do so, she considered saying aloud to Brian (but didn't), you have to bear witness to your dead. You simply have to. You have to step into the energy field of whatever remains of their spirit, their soul, their essence and let it pass through your body. And in the passing, maybe a wisp of it adheres to you, grafts itself to your cells. And in this communion, the dead continue to live. Or strive to. Instead

You ever hear of Little Christmas?" he asked her. "'Course," she said. "January sixth." "Nobody remembers it anymore." "Meant something in my time," she said. "My old man's too." Her voice picked up a tone of distracted pity. "Not yours, though." "Not mine," Bob agreed and felt a trapped

And not the clarity of the insane, but the everyday clarity of an intelligent woman in a less-than-intelligent world. She smiled and gave them each a small, shy wave as she sat.

Shit happens. It is what it is. Whatta ya gonna do.

His father was gone. He was no longer a son. He was a man without history or expectation. A blank slate, beholden to none. He felt like a pilgrim who'd pushed off from the shore of a homeland he'd never see again, crossed a black sea under a black sky, and landed in the new world, which waited, unformed, as if it had always been waiting. For him. To give the country a name, to remake it in his image so it could espouse his values and export them across the globe.

No, a guy had one on the T when I was coming over here. I work in Cambridge.

Igual se estaba haciendo viejo; sabía que no entender la música de la generación más joven era la primera señal de que la tuya estaba de capa caída

The person you love is rarely worthy of how big your love is. Because no one is worthy of that and maybe no one deserves the burden of it, either. You'll be let down. You'll be disappointed and have your trust broken and have a lot of real sucky days. You lose more than you win. You hate the person you love as much as you love him. But, sh*t, you roll up your sleeves and work - at everything -because that's what growing older is.

Jimmy looked back over at his wife, and Celeste could feel the tenderest of aches in the look. She could feel another teardrop piece of Jimmy's heart detach and free-fall down the inside of his chest.

They keep us fighting among ourselves like dogs for table scraps so we won't catch them making off with the feast.

Guy in prison says to me once, he says, 'Happiness comes in moments, and then it's gone until the next time. Could be years. But sadness'"—Val winked—"'sadness settles in.

That the thought of what could have been his life sometimes haunted him, hovered around approaching corners, rode the breeze like the echo of a name called from a window.

It's impossible to park on Tremont or even idle there for more than thirty seconds. A platoon of meter maids, imported from the female Hitler Youth shortly after the fall of Berlin, roam the street, at least two to a block, pit bull faces on top of fire hydrant bodies, just waiting for someone stupid enough to stall traffic on their street.

Soft waves broke against the rocks.

It's the process, how you become a man. Boys cling; men leave.

Unaware, then, how short futures could be. How quick they could disappear, leave you with nothing but a long-ass present that held no surprises, no reason for hope, nothing but days that bled into one another with so little impact that another year was over and the calendar page in the kitchen was still stuck on March.

have been this other one they call Spartak.

We live in a world of disposable memory. Nothing's built to last, not even shame.

thousands of years of study and experience have made it easier to heal the body, but no one has gotten much past square one on the human mind.

Goddamn embarrassing what a civilian you've become, man.

Your first family is your blood family and you always be true to that. That means something. But there's another family and that's the kind you go out and find. Maybe even by accident sometimes. And they're as much blood as your first family. Maybe more so, because they don't have to look out for you and they don't have to love you. They choose to.

Power—most power anyway, certainly Vidalia's brand of it—was the fly that called itself a hawk. It could only govern those who agreed to call it a hawk instead of a fly, a tiger instead of a cat, a king instead of a man.