“I have a secret passion for mercy. But justice is what keeps happening to people.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
“We merged our lonelinesses once again, in something less than love but sweeter than self. I didn’t get home to West Los Angeles after all.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
“I’ve spilled all my secrets. How do you make people do it?” “I don’t. People like to talk about what’s hurting them. It takes the edge off the pain sometimes.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
“What did the old man want?” “Your husband’s money, just like everyone else.” “But not you, eh?” Her voice was sardonic. “Not me,” I said. “Money costs too much.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
“daughter?’ ‘She was a beautiful child.’ Mrs Williams’s eyes grew misty with the quasi-maternal feelings of a procuress.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
“That isn’t your real motivation. I know your type. You have a secret passion for justice. Why don’t you admit it?” “I have a secret passion for mercy,” I said. “But justice is what keeps happening to people.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
“I’m sick of always doing the professional thing for prudential reasons.’ I”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
Ross Macdonald
Born place: in Los Gatos, California,, The United States
Born date December 13, 1915
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“That night they camped, in a grove of oaks and beeches where a spring ran. The nights were still cool and they had a fire against it, of a rail lifted from a nearby fence and cut into lengths—a small fire, neat, niggard almost, a shrewd fire; such fires were his father’s habit and custom always, even in freezing weather. Older, the boy might have remarked this and wondered why not a big one; why should not a man who had not only seen the waste and extravagance of war, but who had in his blood an inherent voracious prodigality with material not his own, have burned everything in sight?”
― William Faulkner, quote from Collected Stories
“I’ve known you all my life. And I’ve never seen you treat anyone the way you treat Sienna. Not when we were in high school and not now. She’s your one. The one who reaches you. The one who makes you different.”
― Abbi Glines, quote from Hold on Tight
“Since the 1300s, this job had been performed by members of a small group of families, all living in the hills near the mine. Over the centuries humans grew larger, but the miners stayed the same size, until they eventually seemed dwarfed by the demands of the mine and their time underground (diet and inbreeding were more likely causes). Even in the early twentieth century, this small isolated community spoke a dialect last popular in the Middle Ages. They explored their tunnels with acetylene torches, and wore the white linen suits and peaked caps of medieval miners.”
― Robert M. Edsel, quote from The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History
“There’s something dripping in my head. [Pause.] A heart, a heart in my head.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame & Act Without Words
“White paint can be made of many things. It can come from chalk or zinc, barium or rice, or from little fossilized sea creatures in limestone graves. The Dutch artist Jan Vermeer even made some of his luminescent whites with a recipe that included alabaster and quartz—in lumps that took the light reflected into the painting and made it dance.3”
― Victoria Finlay, quote from Color: A Natural History of the Palette
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Tales of the Cthulhu...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
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