“In the long run, all wrongs are righted, every minus is equalized with a plus, the columns are totaled and the totals are found correct. But that's in the long run. We must live in the short run and matters are often unjust there. The compensating for us of the universe makes all the accounts come out even, but they grind down the good as well as the wicked in the process.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from The Poet
“It’s lucky no one else knows what our most secret thoughts are. We’d all be seen for the cunning, self-aggrandizing fools we are.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from The Poet
“There is a means to every end. A root to any cause. Sometimes the root is more evil than any cause, though it's the cause that is usually most vilified.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from The Poet
“Writing does for me what you got in that glass does for you. If I can write about it, I can understand it. And I can put it in the ground. That’s all I want to do.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from The Poet
“I once read a book about a reporter written by a reporter who described the life as always running in front of a thresher. I thought it was the most accurate description I’d read.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from The Poet
“His eyes strayed past us to the television. On the program they were now selling a glove with small rubber bristles on the palm for grooming pets. “I know what else you could use that for,” Adkins said. He made a masturbation motion with his hand and winked and smiled at Thompson. “That’s what they’re really selling that for, you know.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from The Poet
“John Brooks.’ Immediately, I thought of the odds. First of just surviving in such a place, next of surviving and then becoming a cop. ‘Vertical ghettos, each one of them. Me and John used to say it was the only time when you had to take the elevator up when you were going to hell.’ I just nodded. This was out of my realm completely. ‘And that’s only if the elevators were working,’ he added. I realized that I never considered that Brooks might be a black man. There was no photo in the computer printouts and no reason to mention race in the stories. I had just assumed he was white and it was an assumption I would have to analyze later. At the moment, I was trying to figure out what Washington was trying to tell me by taking me here. Washington pulled into a lot next to one of the buildings. There were a couple of dumpsters coated with decades of graffiti slogans. There was a rusted basketball backboard but the rim was long gone. He put the car in park but left it running. I didn’t know if that was to keep the heat flowing or to allow us a quick getaway if needed. I saw a small group of teenagers in long coats, their faces as dark as the sky, scurry from the building closest to us, then cross a frozen courtyard and hustle into one of the other buildings. ‘At this point you’re wondering what the hell you’re doing here,’ Washington said then. ‘That’s okay, I understand. A white boy like you.’ Again I said nothing. I was letting him run out his line. ‘See that one, third on the right. That was our building. I was on fourteen with my grand-auntie and John lived with his mother on twelve, one below us. They didn’t have no thirteen, already enough bad luck ’round here. Neither of us had fathers. At least ones that showed up.’ I thought he wanted me to say something but I didn’t know what. I had no earthly idea what kind of struggle the two friends must have had to make it out of the tombstone of a building he had pointed at. I remained mute. ‘We were friends for life. Hell, he ended up marrying my first girlfriend, Edna. Then on the department, after we both made homicide and trained with senior detectives for a few years, we asked to be partnered. And damn, it got approved. Story about us in the”
― Michael Connelly, quote from The Poet
“She had on a large blond wig, bright pink lipstick and enough makeup on her cheeks to frost a cupcake or”
― Michael Connelly, quote from The Poet
“Death is my beat. I make my living from it. I forge my professional reputation on it. I treat it with the passion and precision of an undertaker--somber and sympathetic about it when I'm with the bereaved, a skilled craftsman with it when I'm alone.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from The Poet
“With the money from the legal settlement, he hires a beautiful young woman from the local university to type for him as he orally composes the sentences. But soon he realizes she is editing and rewriting what he tells her before she even types it in. And what dawns on him is that she is the better writer. Soon he sits mute in the room while she writes. He only watches. He wants to kill her, strangle her with his hands. But he can’t move his hands to do it. He is in hell.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from The Poet
Michael Connelly
Born place: in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The United States
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“The prince put the dagger on the table. “Sorry.”
Yorick bent forward and looked up into his eyes. “Don’t forget our respective places here. I’m your clown. Your plaything. Your toy. Scarcely human. No need to apologise.”
― A.J. Hartley, quote from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
“There are defining moments in one's life when you learn about yourself, and you deposit that knowledge in the experience account, so you can draw on it at some later date.”
― Jeffrey Archer, quote from Best Kept Secret
“With a wicked smirk, he turned his attention back to the desolate road. “I’ve always wanted to do this. Who better to have my first time out on the open road with than the only girl I’ve ever been in love with.”
Staring straight ahead, he dared not look her way. It hadn’t exactly slipped, and telling her he was in love with her wasn’t on a whim. The whole time that he’d been tormented this past week, he’d considered showing up at her house and just spilling it. If there was ever anything he’d been certain of, it was this.
He finally glanced at Nellie, her silence scaring the hell out of him. She was staring at him with her hand over her mouth. Her eyes completely welled again and her brows pinched. “It’s true,” he smiled, “not just in love, Nell, but hopeless, there’s-no-helping-this-guy kind of in love with you.”
― Elizabeth Reyes, quote from Abel
“Those that much covet are with gain so fond,
For what they have not, that which they possess
They scatter and unloose it from their bond,
And so, by hoping more, they have but less;
Or, gaining more, the profit of excess
Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,
That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from The Rape of Lucrece
“I libri non resuscitano i morti, e non fanno di un idiota un uomo capace di ragionare, né di uno stupido un individuo intelligente: aguzzano lo spirito, lo destano, lo affinano e appagano la sua sete di conoscenza. Quanto a chi vuol sapere tutto, è meglio che la famiglia lo faccia curare, perché un simile desiderio non può che nascere da un turbamento dello spirito. Muto quando gli imponi il silenzio, eloquente quando lo fai parlare. Grazie al libro, puoi apprendere nello spazio di un mese quello che un'eternità non ti consentirebbe di apprendere dalle labbra di un sapiente, e questo senza farti contrarre debiti di sapere. Ti libera dall'imbarazzo, ti solleva dalle necessità di frequentare persone odiose e di avere rapporti con individui stupidi e incapaci di comprendere. Ti obbedisce di giorno come di notte, tanto in viaggio quanto nei periodi in cui sei sedentario. Se cadi in disgrazia, non per questo il libro rinuncia a servirti; se venti contrari soffiano contro di te, non ti si rivolta contro. Accade talvolta che il libro sia superiore al suo autore.”
― Denis Guedj, quote from The Parrot's Theorem
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