Quotes from Dennis Lehane

He used it on the next guard, the one in front of the fence. He disarmed him, a kid, a baby, really, and the guard said, 'You going to kill me?' 'Jesus, kid, no,' Teddy said and snapped the butt of the rifle into the kid's temple.

Things weren't ever what they were supposed to be; they were what they were, and that was the simple truth of it, a truth that didn't change just because you wanted it to.

After all your years climbing around in people's heads like a cranial janitor, do you think people know why they do things? People rationalize, they turn their delusions into something romantic that they can disguise as ethics or principles or ideals. People are selfish, Doctor- odiously, monstrously, but in so small and paltry a monstrousness that we barely notice it.

Baby, why are you all wet?

He thought: so this is what it feels like to love. No logic to it - he barely knew her. But there it was just the same. He'd just met the woman he'd known, somehow, since before he was born. The measure of every dream he'd never dared indulge.

So, about the only difference I see between a thief and a banker most times is a college degree.

It's odd how fast a beautiful woman can turn a guy's mind into lint storage. Just by being a beautiful woman.

Confidence you haven't earned always has the brightest glow.

We met when we were both majoring in Space Invaders with a Pub Etiquette minor at the Happy Harbor Campus of UMass/Boston.

He was done with every lie he'd ever allowed himself to believe, every lie he'd ever lived, every lie.

Jesus, Dolores, you've got to get yourself together. You've got responsibilities. Think about those sometimes - okay? - and get your fucking head right. Those were the last words his wife heard from him. He'd closed the door and walked down the stairs, paused on the last step. He thought of going back. He thought of going back up the stairs and into the apartment and somehow making it right. Or, if not right, at least softer. Softer. That would have been nice.

Love like that? Hell, it seems so pure, it's damn near criminal.

She had the air of someone clinging to a wall of soap.

Lui avrebbe voluto chiederle che rumore fa un cuore quando si rompe per la gioia, quando è sufficiente la vista di qualcuno per riempirti come né il cibo, né il sangue, né l'aria potranno mai fare; quando ti senti come se fossi nato per vivere un momento preciso e quel momento, per qualche ragione particolare, era proprio quello.

New Music, I guess, is all those bands Angie listens to. They have names like Depeche Mode and The Smiths and all they sound the same to me - like a bunch of skinny white British nerds on Thorazine. The Stones, when they started, were a bunch of skinny white British nerds too, but they never sounded like they were on Thorazine. Even if they were.

I don't believe he casts people into eternal flame for fornication, as you pointed out. Or for believing in a version of him that is a little off the mark. I believe—or, I want to believe—he considers the worst sins to be those we commit in his name.

It occurred to him that thinking like this could explain why, even after all the jobs he'd pulled, he rarely had much money in his pockets. Sometimes it seemed like he stole money from one place just to give it away somewhere else.

Joe closed his hand over the watch and it was still warm from his father's pocket, ticking against his palm like a heart.

Plans are just dreams until they're executed.

Twelve dead?" I said. "Jesus.

He held up a hand to stop her. "Then one day, about six months ago, it hit me—love doesn't trump all for you, safety does. And I knew sooner or later you'd dump me before I'd dump you because—and this is the important part, Rach—I would never dump you." He gave her a beautiful, broken smile. "And that's been my purpose all along." After

It was one of those sneaky days in late winter where spring came along to get a lay of the land.

I'm a detective, but nuns could stonewall Sam Spade into an asylum

Men who believe that the way to the mind is not by way of ice picks through the brain or large dosages of dangerous medicine but through an honest reckoning of the self.