“Working homicide for so many years, Bosch could not be surprised anymore by the horrors people inflicted on each other. But the horrors people saved for themselves were a different story.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from Angels Flight
“He had lived alone most of his life. He was used to places that were empty. He knew the real shelter of a home was inside yourself.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from Angels Flight
“The rich kept you waiting so you could feel free to admire all that they had.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from Angels Flight
“People are the worst animals,” Rider said. “They will do anything to each other. Just to indulge their fantasies.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from Angels Flight
“Overreacting as usual,” Bosch said. “One fire and they’re all there, showing the flames. You know what that does? That’s like throwing gasoline on it. It will spread now. People will see that in their living rooms and go outside to see what is happening. Groups will form, things will be said and people won’t be able to back down from their anger. One thing will lead to another and we’ll have our media-manufactured riot.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from Angels Flight
“But before I left,” Rider continued, “I learned enough to know that most often sexual abuse of children comes from inside the family, relatives or close friends. The boogey monsters who climb through the window and abduct are few and far between.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from Angels Flight
“The excitement and adrenaline that accompany a new case caused a false high that always wore off quickly.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from Angels Flight
“The rich kept you waiting so that you could feel free to admire all that they had.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from Angels Flight
“Everyone was oblivious to the seething hatred and anger that churned in other parts of the city — beneath the surface like an undiscovered fault line waiting to open up and swallow all above.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from Angels Flight
“Civil unrest occurs when the feelings of overwhelming powerlessness hit critical mass.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from Angels Flight
“Somebody once called the media the merchants of chaos.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from Angels Flight
Michael Connelly
Born place: in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The United States
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“It's risky, falling in love."
"I know that," I answered. "I've been in love before. It's like a narcotic. At first it brings the euphoria of complete surrender. The next day, you want more. You're not addicted yet, but you like the sensation, and you think you can still control things. You think about the person you love for two minutes, and forget them for three hours.
"But then you get used to that person, and you begin to be completely dependent on them. Now you think about him for three hours and forget him for two minutes. If he's not there, you feel like an addict who can't get a fix. And just as addicts steal and humiliate themselves to get what they need, you're willing to do anything for love."
"What a horrible way to put it," he said.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
“You’ll have a piece of my heart – all of it, really. Forever.”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, quote from Deity
“But I got through the review, for all their Latin and French; I did, and if you doubt me, you just look at the end of the great ledger, turn it upside down, and you'll find I've copied out all the fine words they said of you: "careful observer," "strong nervous English," "rising philosopher."
Oh! I can nearly say it all off by heart, for many a time when I am frabbed by bad debts, or Osborne's bills, or moidered with accounts, I turn the ledger wrong way up, and smoke a pipe over it, while I read those pieces out of the review which speak about you, lad!”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, quote from Wives and Daughters
“I will take you down my own avenue of remembrance, which winds among the hazards and shadows of my single year as a plebe. I cannot come to this story in full voice. I want to speak for the boys who were violated by this school, the ones who left ashamed and broken and dishonored, who departed from the Institute with wounds and bitter grievances. I want also to speak for the triumphant boys who took everything the system could throw at them, endured every torment and excess, and survived the ordeal of the freshman year with a feeling of transformation and achievement that they never had felt before and would never know again with such clarity and elation.
I will speak from my memory- my memory- a memory that is all refracting light slanting through prisms and dreams, a shifting, troubled riot of electrons charged with pain and wonder. My memory often seems like a city of exiled poets afire with the astonishment of language, each believing in the integrity of his own witness, each with a separate version of culture and history, and the divine essentional fire that is poetry itself.
But i will try to isolate that one lonely singer who gathered the fragments of my plebe year and set the screams to music. For many years, I have refused to listen as his obsessive voice narrated the malignant litany of crimes against my boyhood. We isolate those poets who cause us the greatest pain; we silence them in any way we can. I have never allowed this furious dissident the courtesy of my full attention. His poems are songs for the dead to me. Something dies in me every time I hear his low, courageous voice calling to me from the solitude of his exile. He has always known that someday I would have to listen to his story, that I would have to deal with the truth or falsity of his witness. He has always known that someday I must take full responsibility for his creation and that, in finally listening to him, I would be sounding the darkest fathoms of myself. I will write his stories now as he shouts them to me. I will listen to him and listen to myself. I will get it all down.
Yet the laws of recall are subject to distortion and alienation. Memory is a trick, and I have lied so often to myself about my own role and the role of others that I am not sure I can recognize the truth about those days. But I have come to believe in the unconscious integrity of lies. I want to record even them. Somewhere in the immensity of the lie the truth gleams like the pure, light-glazed bones of an extinct angel. Hidden in the enormous falsity of my story is the truth for all of us who began at the Institute in 1963, and for all who survived to become her sons. I write my own truth, in my own time, in my own way, and take full responsibility for its mistakes and slanders. Even the lies are part of my truth.
I return to the city of memory, to the city of exiled poets. I approach the one whose back is turned to me. He is frail and timorous and angry. His head is shaved and he fears the judgment of regiments. He will always be a victim, always a plebe. I tap him on the shoulder.
"Begin," I command.
"It was the beginning of 1963," he begins, and I know he will not stop until the story has ended.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Lords of Discipline
“I was lost in the dark and you found me. I was hot - so hot - and you gave me ice.”
― Stephen King, quote from Lisey's Story
All That Matters
The Imperfectionists
A Killing Frost
My Unfair Godmother
Redshirts
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