“When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“...the sun rose each morning to stare into my face with the blank but touching gaze of a lovely retarded child.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“Stories are like snapshots, pictures snatched out of time, with clean hard edges. But this was life, and life always begins and ends in a bloody muddle, womb to tomb, just one big mess, a can of worms left to rot in the sun.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“I knew the men were probably terrible people who whistled at pretty girls, treated their wives like servants, and voted for Nixon every chance they got, but as far as I was concerned, they beat the hell out of a Volvo-load of liberals for hard work and good times.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“I chuckled like Aldo Ray. If I had to endure his l'homme du monde act, he had to suffer my jaded alcoholic private eye.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“I didn't know what was going on, didn't understand a bit of it, didn't like any of it. Maybe that's why the first thing I packed was my guns. If your brain won't work, wave a gun around. Sometimes that helps.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“Nobody lives forever, nobody stays young long enough. My past seemed like so much excess baggage, my future a series of long goodbyes, my present an empty flask, the last good drink already bitter on my tongue.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“Youth endures all things, kings and poetry and love. Everything but time.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“There’s no fool like a fool who thinks he’s charming. On”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“Nobody lives forever, nobody stays young long enough. My past seemed like so much excess baggage, my future a series of long goodbyes, my present an empty flask, the last good drink already bitter on my tongue. She still loved Trahearne, still maintained her secret fidelity as if it were a miniature Japanese pine, as tiny and perfect as a porcelain cup, lost in the dark and tangled corner of a once-formal garden gone finally to seed.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“When even the bartenders lose their romantic notions, it's time for a better world.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“Sadness softened her nasal twang, that ubiquitous accent that had drifted out of the Appalachian hills and hollows, across the southern plains, across the southwestern deserts, insinuating itself all the way to the golden hills of California. But somewhere along the way, Rosie had picked up a gentler accent too, a fragrant voice more suited to whisper throaty, romantic words like Wisteria, or humid phrases like honeysuckle vine, her voice for gentleman callers. “Just fine,” she repeated. Even little displaced Okie girls grow up longing to be gone with some far better wind than that hot, cutting, dusty bite that’s blowing their daddy’s crops to hell and gone. I went to get her a beer, wishing it could be something finer.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“Like too many men, Trahearne and I didn't know how to deal with a woman like [the girl], caught as we were between our own random lusts and a desire for faithful women so primitive and fierce that it must have been innate, atavistic, as uncontrollable as a bodily function. That was when I stopped being angry at the old man.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“This was the place, the place I would have come on my own wandering binge, come here and lodged like a marble in a crack, this place, a haven for California Okies and exiled Texans, a home for country folk lately dispossessed, their eyes so empty of hope that they reflect hot, windy plains, spare, almost Biblical sweeps of horizon broken only by the spines of an orphaned rocking chair, and beyond this, clouded with rage, the reflections of orange groves and ax handles.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
James Crumley
Born place: in Missoula, Montana, The United States
Born date October 12, 1939
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“If you’re going to worry about anything, Gideon, it should be me . Because I can’t be rational when it comes to you. I’m crazy about you. Literally. I can’t think about a future without you— it freaks me out.”
― Sylvia Day, quote from Captivated by You
“A woman's face, naked and unadorned, is as beautiful as the moon, and as mysterious.”
― Cate Tiernan, quote from Immortal Beloved
“How did you know that we could get him to do whatever we want if we pretend he’s in charge?” Sabrina asked Daphne.
“It’s what I do with you” the little girl replied. “You two are exactly the same”
― Michael Buckley, quote from The Fairy-Tale Detectives
“No one ought even to desert a woman after throwing her a heap of gold in her distress! He ought to love her forever! You are young, only twenty-one, and kind and upright and fine. You'll ask me how a woman can take money from a man. Oh, God, isn't it natural to share everything with the one we owe all our happiness to? When one has given everything, how can one quibble about a mere portion of it? Money is important only when feeling has ceased. Isn't one bound for life? How can you foresee separation when you think someone loves you? When a man swears eternal love--how can there be any separate concerns in that case?”
― Honoré de Balzac, quote from Père Goriot
“his Rolex, and looked at me. Among the fey it was impolite to ask why a person was having hysterics. Hell, sometimes it was considered impolite to notice they were having hysterics at all. Usually that was for ruling royalty, though. Everyone had to pretend that the king or queen wasn’t bug nuts. Mustn’t admit that centuries of inbreeding had done any damage. He”
― Laurell K. Hamilton, quote from A Caress of Twilight
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My Bright Abyss: Med...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.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
