Quotes from Reed Farrel Coleman

When cops are on the job they love lawyers like lions love hyenas, only minus the mutual respect.

In a country that values the ballroom dancing talents of washed-up actors, writers were less than afterthoughts.

I achieved what all artists dread: I had outlived most of my money and all of my talent.

I'd burned bridges between us that had yet to be built.

The first snort of coke, the first taste of a woman, the first sip of scotch: every high is different, but somehow the same.

When you feel the stitches holding the illusion of yourself together begin to stretch and pop, and you can't sew fast enough to keep the stuffing in.

His ears were so littered with studs, safety pins and dangling razor blades that if he were to stand between two strong magnets his face would peel off.

women are judged differently and it's not fair.

I've never let myself get scared off anything in my life and I wasn't gonna start now. You back down once, there's no telling when it'll stop. You let yourself get scared and it never goes away. It fucks up your judgments.

This is publishing, Kip! Since when does logic have anything to do with it?

Readers have some peculiar notions about the status of writers, the most foolish of which is that writers are treated like royalty by their publishers.

You can feel yourself falling in love, not out of it.

I'm not sure letting people at their money all the time is such a great idea. Even level-headed people make some pretty stupid decisions with a bellyful at three in the morning. I don't think adding ready cash to the equation is bound to help.

baseball players. Football, maybe. Not baseball, not built the way they were: thick

Closure is overrated. Closure doesn't exist.

There is always a cause, but not always a because. And even when there is, the dead are beyond its reach or caring.

There was no deeper truth in the mundanity of violence. That truth sat on the surface and required no mining at all.

I didn't much believe in god and the things people labeled as miracles did little to convince me otherwise, but it was at times like these that made me consider which was the more cruel: a cold and random universe or a god with a perverse sense of humor? With all due respect to Blaise Pascal, I chose to believe that no god was better than a cruel one.

Retired people don't so much die as they let themselves fall asleep a bit at a time. They become passive and inactive and they forget they're alive.

and moved on, working with the selectmen or mayors because it was better for

In his years as a street cop, homicide detective, and police chief, Jesse thought he had learned his lesson about hope. He knew better than most just how little purchase hope ever really has. -Jesse Stone

Snowmen tipsy from thaw and refreezing marked my progress as I rolled slowly down Hanover Street.

I learned to love reading again, but a lot of the time the books made me ache worse. When I was in school I didn't realize that most fiction was about death and regret. About things people wished they had or hadn't said, done or hadn't done and how, for whatever reasons, saying or not saying, doing or not doing had buried them alive. I was already too familiar with that feeling to want to read much more about it. Lately I was sticking to nonfiction.

I hope they have those little hot dogs. It's not a party without the little hot dogs.