James Lee Burke Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• In the alluvial sweep of the land, I thought I could see the past and the present and the future all at once, as though time were not sequential in nature but took place without a beginning or an end, like a flash of green light rippling outward from the center of creation, not unlike a dream inside the mind of God.

  James Lee Burke

  Dream, Past, Light

  James Lee Burke (2011). “The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel”, p.303, Simon and Schuster

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• Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity.

  James Lee Burke

  Humility, Virtue, Absolutes

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• One day you'll have a quiet heart.

  James Lee Burke

  Heart, One Day, Quiet

  James Lee Burke (2011). “A Dave Robicheaux Ebook Boxed Set: Neon Rain, Heaven's Prisoners, Excerpt from The Glass Rainbow”, p.253, Simon and Schuster

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• Hackberry Holland's greatest fear was his fellow man's propensity to act collectively, in militaristic lockstep, under the banner of God and country. Mobs did not rush across town to do good deeds, and in Hackberry's view, there was no more odious taint on any social or political endeavor than universal approval.

  James Lee Burke

  Country, Men, Greatest Fear

  James Lee Burke (2011). “The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel”, p.540, Simon and Schuster

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• But the participants [in war] never forgot the details of their experience, and like the Wandering Jew, they were condemned to remain their own history books, each containing a story they could not pass on to others and from which no one would learn anything of value.

  James Lee Burke

  War, Book, Details

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• Is there a design in the events of our lives? Or do things just happen, much like a junk yard falling down a staircase? If it's the latter, how do you deal with it?

  James Lee Burke

  Fall, Design, Junk

  James Lee Burke (2008). “The Tin Roof Blowdown”, p.148, Simon and Schuster

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• In that moment, when watches and clocks misbehave and you feel a cold vapor wrap itself around your heart, you unconsciously draw a line at the bottom of a long column of numbers and come up with a sum. Perhaps it's one that fills you with contentment and endows you with a level of courage and an acceptance that you didn't know you possessed.Or maybe not.

  James Lee Burke

  Heart, Acceptance, Numbers

  James Lee Burke (2010). “The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel”, p.297, Simon and Schuster

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• I think all good narration contains an element of mystery and suspense. If it didn't, if the storyline were predictable, we would have no interest in reading it.

  James Lee Burke

  Reading, Thinking, Suspense

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• Never read bad stuff if you're an artist; it will impair your own game. I don't know if you ever played competitive tennis, but you learn not to watch bad tennis; it messes up your game. Art's the same way.

  James Lee Burke

  Art, Reading, Games

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• You do it a day at a time. You just put your rejection slips in a shoebox and tell yourself one day you're going to autograph them and sell them at auction.

  James Lee Burke

  Writing, Rejection, One Day

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• What's the worst thing about getting old? Getting old.

  James Lee Burke

  Worst, Worst Things, Getting Old

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• A lie is an act of theft. It steals peoples faith and makes them resent themselves

  James Lee Burke

  Lying, Stealing, Theft

  James Lee Burke (2007). “Pegasus Descending: A Dave Robicheaux Novel”, p.306, Simon and Schuster

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• I believe the causes that create them [serial killers] are theological in nature, rather than societal. I believe they make a conscious choice to erase God's thumbprint from their souls.

  James Lee Burke

  Believe, Choices, Soul

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• I wouldn't write anything autobiographical. If you've lived a life like Laurence of Arabia, it might be a consideration, but otherwise it's a little bit vain, it seems to me.

  James Lee Burke

  Writing, Arabia, Littles

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• I could only wonder again at the white race's naïveté in always sending forth our worst members as our emissaries.

  James Lee Burke

  Race, White, Vets

  James Lee Burke (2011). “Sunset Limited”, p.44, Island Books

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• My experience has been that people who die for causes have few friends in death.

  James Lee Burke

  People, Few Friends, Causes

  James Lee Burke (2010). “The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel”, p.251, Simon and Schuster

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• THE ALLURE OF Montana is like a commitment to a narcotic; you can never use it up or get enough of it. Its wilderness areas probably resemble the earth on the first day of creation.

  James Lee Burke

  Commitment, Use, Montana

  James Lee Burke (2014). “Light of the World: A Dave Robicheaux Novel”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

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• Age is a clever thief. It takes a little from you each day, so you're not aware of your loss until it'd irreversible.

  James Lee Burke

  Clever, Loss, Age

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• There is no higher form of artistic expression then film

  James Lee Burke

  Expression, Artistic, Film

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• I think the "crime novel" has replaced the sociological novel of the 1930s. I think the progenitor of that tradition is James M. Cain, who in my view is the most neglected writer in American literature.

  James Lee Burke

  Thinking, Views, Crime Novels

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• I sometimes subscribe to the belief that all historical events occur simultaneously, like a dream in the mind of God. Perhaps it is only man who views time sequentially and tries to impose a solar calendar upon it. What if other people, both dead and unborn, are living out their lives in the same space we occupy, without our knowledge or consent?" The Glass Rainbow, p. 138

  James Lee Burke

  Dream, Men, Space

  James Lee Burke (2011). “The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel”, p.172, Simon and Schuster

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• writing is like being in love. You never get better at it or learn more about it. The day you think you do is the day you lose it. Robert Frost called his work a lover's quarrel with the world. It's ongoing. It has neither a beginning nor an end. You don't have to worry about learning things. The fire of one's art burns all the impurities from the vessel that contains it.

  James Lee Burke

  Art, Love You, Writing

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• There's no substitute for loyalty.

  James Lee Burke

  Loyalty, Substitutes

  "James Lee Burke: What I've Learned". Interview with Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. January 2013.

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  If you put somebody on a crack pipe and give them a 9 mm Baretta, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what's going to happen next.

  James Lee Burke

  Giving, Cracks, Rockets

  Interview with April Henry, www.aprilhenrymysteries.com. 1999.

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• If we break promises to God, shouldn't we be allowed an occasional violation of our word to our friends and superiors?

  James Lee Burke

  Promise, Our Words, Break

  James Lee Burke (2011). “A Dave Robicheaux Ebook Boxed Set: Neon Rain, Heaven's Prisoners, Excerpt from The Glass Rainbow”, p.276, Simon and Schuster

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