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842597e
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There is nothing you can do about the past except keep it there.
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Michael Connelly |
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7c5ff31
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J. Michael Haller, Criminal Defense Attorney, Los Angeles, 1962."
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responsibility
risk
fear
clients
criminal-law
justice-system
innocence
justice
guilt
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Michael Connelly |
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5dfba7c
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You know what I did after I wrote my first novel? I shut up and wrote twenty-three more.
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writing
writing-craft
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Michael Connelly |
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f559871
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You can't patch a wounded soul with a Band-Aid.
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sould
injuries
psyche
wounds
ptsd
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Michael Connelly |
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858a68d
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What is important is not what you hear said, it's what you observe.
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reality
truth
observation
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Michael Connelly |
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3268e45
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Los Angeles was the kind of place where everybody was from somewhere else and nobody really droppped anchor. It was a transient place. People drawn by the dream, people running from the nightmare. Twelve million people and all of them ready to make a break for it if necessary. Figuratively, literally, metaphorically -- any way you want to look at it -- everbody in L.A. keeps a bag packed. Just in case.
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escape
hopes
dreams
southern-california
transience
restlessness
los-angeles
escapism
nightmares
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Michael Connelly |
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bdc02d6
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What is jealousy but a reflection of your own failures?
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jealousy
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Michael Connelly |
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0d2987a
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There were a billion lights out there on the horizon and I knew that all of them put together weren't enough to light the darkness in the hearts of some men.
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lights
psychopaths
souls
hearts
psychology
evil
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Michael Connelly |
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025c74e
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I view people two ways. They're either eye-for-an-eye people or they are turn-the-cheek people.
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Michael Connelly |
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1f80e2d
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The setting sun burned the sky pink and orange in the same bright hues as surfers' bathing suits. It was beautiful deception, Bosch thought, as he drove north on the Hollywood Freeway to home. Sunsets did that here. Made you forget it was the smog that made their colors so brilliant, that behind every pretty picture there could be an ugly story.
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smog
southern-california
make-believe
sunsets
los-angeles
deception
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Michael Connelly |
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8953b51
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I've learned over the years that sometimes if you ask the same question more than once you get different responses.
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Michael Connelly |
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e11c992
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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.
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Michael Connelly |
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0f7de3d
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If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents?
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injustice
system
innocence
justice
police
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Michael Connelly |
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791bc5b
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You can fall in love and make love many times but there is only one bullet with your name etched on the side. And if you are lucky enough to be shot with that bullet then the wound never heals.
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love
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Michael Connelly |
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6b20c7d
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You know you're going to get burned from time to time. It's just part of the game. So when it happens you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and forget about it because they're about to snap the ball again.
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Michael Connelly |
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fe452ee
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There is no end of things in the heart. ...she understood it to mean that if you took something to heart, really brought it inside those red velvet folds, then it would always be there for you. No matter what happened, it would be there waiting. She said this could mean a person, a place, a dream. A mission. Anything sacred. She told me that it is all connected in those secret folds. Always. It is all part of the same and will always be the..
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Michael Connelly |
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5711d83
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Well, did he do it?" She always asked the irrelevant question. It didn't matter in terms of the strategy of the case whether the defendant "did it" or not. What mattered was the evidence against him -- the proof -- and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of reasonable doubt."
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defense
reasonable-doubt
criminal-law
justice-system
evidence
innocence
justice
guilt
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Michael Connelly |
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e0dd612
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Don't go growing a conscience on me," I said. "I've been down that road. It doesn't lead you to anything good."
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Michael Connelly |
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f06f865
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You know what my father said about innocent clients? ... He said the scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you fuck up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life ... He said there is no in-between with an innocent client. No negotiation, no plea bargain, no middle ground. There's only one verdict. You have to put an NG up on the scoreboard. There's no other verdict but not guilty." Levin nodded though..
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responsibility
risk
fear
criminal-law
justice-system
innocence
justice
guilt
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Michael Connelly |
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bd9fd5a
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She refused to accept the simple truism that the better you were, the bigger threat you were to those at the top....
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Michael Connelly |
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4bc0b24
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He [Harry Bosch] defined good company not by the conversation but by the lack of it. When there was no need to talk to feel comfortable, that was the right company
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war
vietnam
mystery
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Michael Connelly |
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8d876e5
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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.
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Michael Connelly |
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4eef2e9
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Money. The ultimate motivation. The ultimate way of keeping score.
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money
wealth
success
materialism
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Michael Connelly |
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733dea7
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There is nothing like the start of a season, before all the one-run losses, pitching breakdowns and missed opportunities. Before reality sets in.
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Michael Connelly |
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efad576
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I'm relaxed, Belk. I call it Zen and the art of not giving a shit.
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harry-bosch
mystery
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Michael Connelly |
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97c97a0
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Az viarvam v teoriiata za edinstveniia kurshum. Mozhesh da se vliubvash i liubish mnogo p'ti, no ima samo edin kurshum, na koito e gravirano imeto ti. I ako izvadish k'smeta da te prostreliat s tozi kurshum,
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Michael Connelly |
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9030441
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Everybody has a jury, the voices they carry inside. Earl Briggs sits on my jury, Gloria Dayton, too. They are there with Katie and Sandy, my mother, my father, and soon Legal Siegel as well. Those I have loved and those I have hurt. Those who bless me and those who haunt me. My gods of guilt. Every day I carry on and I carry them close. Every day I step into the well before them and I argue my case.
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Michael Connelly |
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2d019ed
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Bosch had never liked Las Vegas, though he came often on cases. It shared a kinship with Los Angeles; both were places desperate people ran to. Often, when they ran from Los Angeles, they came here. It was the only place left.
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escape
las-vegas
nevada
los-angeles
desperation
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Michael Connelly |
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879498e
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The world was full of people who could not get over things. There was no closure and there was no peace. The truth did not set you free. But you could get through things. That's what Bosch would tell him. You could head toward the light and climb and dig and fight your way out of the hole.
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Michael Connelly |
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86d2ee1
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Bosch knew the dawn had nothing on the dusk. Dawn always came up ugly, as if the sun was clumsy and in a hurry. The dusk was smoother, the moon more graceful. Maybe it was because the moon was more patient. In life and nature, Bosch thought, darkness always waits.
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moon
dusk
sun
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Michael Connelly |
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b4d175c
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from the short story, Cielo Azul "Harry, get an ambulance." I stood up and stepped back from the scene. I felt my chest growing tight, a clarity of thought coming over me. In all my years I had spoken for the dead many times. I had avenged the dead. I was at home with the dead. But I had never so clearly had a part in pulling someone away from the outstretched hands of death. And in that moment I knew we had done just that. And I knew tha..
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Michael Connelly |
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6c7580f
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You're a sleazy defense lawyer with two ex-wifes and an eight-year-old daughter and we all love you.
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Michael Connelly |
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d5a0b1b
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It's only a wonderful world if you can make it that way. There are no street signs pointing to Paradise Road.
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Michael Connelly |
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b42c89b
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Slowly, his eyes came up and he looked through the kitchen window and out through the Cahuenga Pass. The lights of Hollywood glimmered in the cut, a mirror reflection of the stars of all galaxies everywhere. He thought about all that was bad out there. A city with more things wrong than right. A place where the earth could open up beneath you and suck you into the blackness. A city of lost light. His city. It was all of that and, still, alw..
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Michael Connelly |
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322f9c1
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If you go into darkness, the darkness goes into you.
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Michael Connelly |
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03152ec
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He had lived alone most of his life. He was used to places that were empty. He knew the real shelter of a home was inside yourself.
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Michael Connelly |
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95d4085
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No matter how much they tried to dress her up with neon and family entertainment she [Las Vegas] was still a whore.
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Michael Connelly |
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93a9894
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Eenie, meenie, minie, moe, catch a killer by the toe. If his lawyer's Haller, let him go. Eenie, meenie, minie, moe. Hey bro.
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Michael Connelly |
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b7e5b0d
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Loneliness had been the trash can fire he huddled around for most of his life.
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Michael Connelly |
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e8f24ee
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if you can't stand the ghosts, get out of the haunted house.
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Michael Connelly |
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2f71ccb
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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.
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murderers
psychology-quotes
cause-and-effect
criminals
psychology
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Michael Connelly |
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3db0ba1
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He's dead: Internal bleeding. When they opened him up they found a toothbrush shiv lodged in the anal cavity. It was never determinded whether he'd put it up there for safe keeping himself or somebody else did it for him, but it was a good lesson for the rest of the inmates. They even put up a sign. "Never put sharp objects up your ass."
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Michael Connelly |
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e4bf64a
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The bag was a hybrid I had picked up at a store called Suitcase City while I was plotting my comeback. [...] It had a logo on it -- a mountain ridgeline with the words "Suitcase City" printed across it like the Hollywood sign. Above it, skylights swept the horizon, completing the dream image of desire and hope. I think that logo was the real reason I liked the bag. Because I knew Suitcase City wasn't a store. It was a place. It was Los Ange..
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southern-california
transience
restlessness
los-angeles
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Michael Connelly |
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1b2fbc1
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So, what it's like, Terry? Being a father." ... "It's like having a gun to your head all the time. Because I know if anything happens to her, anything, then my life is over."
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Michael Connelly |