Dennis Lehane · 368 pages
Rating: (31.3K votes)
“That's the thing about being a victim; you start to think it'll happen to you on a regular basis. It's living with the reality of your own vulnerability, and it sucks.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“I go on the presumption that everyone's full of shit until proven otherwise, and this usually serves me in good stead.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“It's hard to close the door on optimistic expectations when you love someone.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“The world according to Bubba is simple - if it aggravates you, stop it. By whatever means necessary.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“L.A. burns, and so many other cities smolder, waiting for the hose that will flood gasoline over the coals, and we listen to politicians who fuel our hate and our narrow views and tell us it's simply a matter of getting back to basics while they sit in their beachfront properties and listen to the surf so they won't have to hear the screams of the drowning.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“This was the photograph, I knew, that had already burned its way into my dreams and my shadows, into that part of my mind that I have no control over. Its image would reappear in all its wanton cruelty for the rest of my life, particularly when I was least prepared for it.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“We met when we were both majoring in Space Invaders with a Pub Etiquette minor at the Happy Harbor Campus of UMass/Boston.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“Vanity is a weakness. I know this. It’s a shallow dependence on the exterior self, on how one looks instead of what one is.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“I stared down the slim barrel of a gun, looked into eyes rabid with fear and hatred, and saw my reflection. Pulled the trigger to make it go away.
I heard the echoes of my gunshots, smelled the cordite, and in the smoke, I still saw my reflection and knew I always would.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“I'm a detective, but nuns could stonewall Sam Spade into an asylum”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“Maybe that's what love is-counting the bandages until someone says, 'Enough'.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“You hear it most when politicians who live in places like Hyannis Port and Beacon Hill and Wellesley make decisions that affect people who live in Dorchester and Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, and then step back and say there isn’t a war going on. There is a war going on. It’s happening in playgrounds, not health clubs. It’s fought on cement, not lawns. It’s fought with pipes and bottles, and lately, automatic weapons. And as long as it doesn’t push through the heavy oak doors where they fight with prep school educations and filibusters and two-martini lunches, it will never actually exist.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“It never works that way. Once that ugliness has been forced into you, it becomes part of your blood, dilutes it, races through your heart and back out again, staining everything as it goes. The ugliness never goes away, never comes out, no matter what you do. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive. All you can do is hope to control it.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“New Music, I guess, is all those bands Angie listens to. They have names like Depeche Mode and The Smiths and all they sound the same to me - like a bunch of skinny white British nerds on Thorazine. The Stones, when they started, were a bunch of skinny white British nerds too, but they never sounded like they were on Thorazine. Even if they were.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“Civilization seems to be something we choose when it fits our purpose.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“Another death. The more I see, the less I know.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“If Donald Trump puked, Copley Place is probably what would hit the toilet.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“Permitidme que os invite a un trago antes de la guerra.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“There’s a bar around the corner. Lemme buy you a drink before the war.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“En mis primeros recuerdos aparece el fuego.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“That’s the thing about being a victim; you start to think it’ll happen to you on a regular basis. Suddenly everything looks suspect and any brightness you may have noticed the day before has dissipated into the shadows. And the shadows are everywhere. It’s living with the reality of your own vulnerability, and it sucks.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“It’s impossible to park on Tremont or even idle there for more than thirty seconds. A platoon of meter maids, imported from the female Hitler Youth shortly after the fall of Berlin, roam the street, at least two to a block, pit bull faces on top of fire hydrant bodies, just waiting for someone stupid enough to stall traffic on their street.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“Le dí un beso y ella me lo devolvió.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“Niphon, standing with a glass of wine, regarded me with curious amusement as I headed straight for him.Considering I usually avoided him if it all possible, my approach undoubtedly astonished him.
But not as much as when I punched him.
I didn’t even need to shape-shift much bulk into my fist. I’d caught him by surprise. The wineglass fell out of his hand, hitting the carpet and spilling its contents like blood. The imp flew backward, hitting Peter’s china cabinet with a crash. Niphon slumped to the floor, eyes wide with shock. I kept coming. Kneeling, I grabbed his designer shirt and jerked him toward me.
“Stay the fuck out of my life, or I will destroy you,” I hissed.
Terror filled his features. “Are you out of your fucking mind? What do you—” Suddenly, the fear disappeared. He started laughing. “He did it, didn’t he? He broke up with you. I didn’t know if he could do it, even after giving him the spiel about how it’d be better for both of you. Oh my. This is lovely. All your so-called charms weren’t enough to—ahh!”
I’d pulled him closer to me, digging my nails into him, and finally, I felt an emotion. Fury. Niphon’s role had been greater than I believed. My face was mere inches from his.
“Remember when you said I was nothing but a backwoods girl from some gritty fishing village? You were right. And I had to survive in gritty circumstances—in situations you’d never be able to handle. And you know what else? I spent most of my childhood gutting fish and other animals.” I ran a finger down his neck. “I can do it for you too. I could slit you from throat to stomach. I could rip you open, and you’d scream for death. You’d wish you weren’t immortal. And I could do it over and over again.”
That wiped the smirk off Niphon’s face.”
― Richelle Mead, quote from Succubus Dreams
“His smile got even bigger. "Yeah, Ace, a day of you cryin' in my arms, sleepin' in my arms, kissin' you, feelin' your body, smellin' your hair, your perfume, only so much a man can take. I ran for an hour, hard, didn't even fuckin' warm up, it didn't touch it. Come back, deal with that fuckwad, (that's her ex) and you're standin' there, all legs and hair, wearin' my shirt. Seriously. Only so much a man can take.”
― Kristen Ashley, quote from Sweet Dreams
“The surface of the iron was irregular, but though it showed no sign of having been polished it was completely smooth—smooth in a way that reminded him of a certain place in the rough stone floor of the kitchen, where all the roughness had been worn away by generations of feet turning to come round the corner from the door.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising
“Kill her for me," she said in that whiny little-girl voice.
Diego took a step toward me, wearing an expression that told me he was only too happy to oblige his lady love.
"Oh, what?" I said. I wasn't even scared. I didn't care anymore. The numbness in my heart had pretty much taken over my whole body. "You always do what she tells you? You know, we have a word for that now. It's called being whipped.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from Darkest Hour
“My visitors are often surprised when they see the TV Mack put in my domain. They seem to find it odd, the sight of a gorilla staring at tiny humans in a box. Sometimes I wonder, though: Isn't the way they stare at me, sitting in my tiny box, just as strange?”
― Katherine Applegate, quote from The One and Only Ivan
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.