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7c2e0d2
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You don't have anything, you don't know anything, you're just a noise like a fart in somebody's pants," Segura said." --
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James Lee Burke |
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3f79046
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of the story showed the four brain-destroyed women Linda Gail had shown me. The grainy transfer of the images to newsprint had made them even more macabre. The story had come off the wire in Los Angeles and was written by a gossip columnist who quoted other gossip columnists as the story's source. The details were bizarre and prurient and unbelievable, in the way of stories from True Detective, Argosy, Saga, and Male, and because they were ..
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James Lee Burke |
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c516589
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Cancer and lightning go where they want. So does political corruption.
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James Lee Burke |
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c17e124
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Tomorrow has no more existence than yesterday, but you can always control now. We live in a series of nows. Think about now.
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James Lee Burke |
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55fd3d5
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I returned to New Orleans and my problems with pari-mutuel windows and a dark-haired, milk-skinned wife from Martinique who went home with men from the Garden District while I was passed out in a houseboat on Lake Pontchartrain, the downdraft of U.S. Army helicopters flattening a plain of elephant grass in my dreams.
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James Lee Burke |
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b91c356
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Then she walked away, like Helen of Troy turning her back on Attica. A gust of warm wind blew newspapers along the boulevard into the sky. The light was orange and bleeding out of the clouds in the west, the horizon darkening, the waves crashing on the beach just the other side of Seawall Boulevard, the palm trees rattling dryly in the wind. I could smell the salt and the seaweed and the tiny shellfish that had dried on the beach, like the ..
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James Lee Burke |
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318d428
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What happens outside of us doesn't count. That's something we don't have control over. It's what we do with it, the way that we react to it, that's important.
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James Lee Burke |
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dc19120
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Through the screen, he could smell the evening as though it were a living presence, the purple and yellow flowers in his yard and the dark green wetness of the fescue part of a song that was never supposed to die. Except he could feel things ending, coming apart at the center, and he didn't know why.
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James Lee Burke |
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5d3e2c1
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Sometimes your luck runs out and you have to accept that the life you planned was a dream written on water.
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James Lee Burke |
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a95bf05
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You just got sprung." "Nig Rosewater out there?" Clete asked. "Nig Rosewater hasn't been up at this hour since World War II."
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James Lee Burke |
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20eb23d
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Varina was breathing hard through her nose, her face pinched, not unlike a child's. "You don't know how mad you can make people," she said. "I had tender feelings for you once, whether you knew it or not. But you're a shit, Dave Robicheaux."
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James Lee Burke |
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1813ab2
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But perhaps age has taught me that the earth is still new, molten at the core and still forming, that black leaves in the winter forest will crawl with life in the spring, that our story is ongoing and it is indeed a crime to allow the heart's energies to dissipate with the fading of light on the horizon.
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James Lee Burke |
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c444ec5
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I told myself I did not have to live as I once did. I did not have to re-create the violent moments that used to come aborning like a sulfurous match flaring off a thumbnail.
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James Lee Burke |
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d511703
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Albert never told anyone of what the guard did to him. But sometimes he smells the guard's stink in his sleep, a combination of chewing tobacco and hair oil and testosterone and dried sweat that had been ironed with starch into the clothes...Albert has always wanted to believe this emblematic moment in his life was regional in origin, born out of ignorance and fear and redneck cruelty, perhaps one even precipitated by his own recklessness, ..
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James Lee Burke |
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7da4f22
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ALL MEN HAVE a religion or totems of some kind. Even the atheist is committed to an enormous act of faith in his belief that the universe created itself and the subsequent creation of intelligent life was simply a biological accident.
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James Lee Burke |
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f937a0f
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I drove to the bar Theodosha had called from and parked on the street. The bar was a gray, dismal place, ensconced like a broken matchbox under a dying oak tree, its only indication of gaiety a neon beer sign that flickered in one window. She was at a table in back, the glow of the jukebox lighting her face and the deep blackness of her hair. She tipped a collins glass to her mouth, her eyes locked on mine. "Let me take you home," I said. "..
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James Lee Burke |
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1408042
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felt foolish and wondered if I had entered that self-deluded stage in an aging man's life when others have to protect him from knowledge
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James Lee Burke |
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f1b4429
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about himself.
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James Lee Burke |
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f485ea9
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The band played "La Jolie Blon" a second time. For me, there is no more haunting ballad in the world. Its origins go back to the eighteenth century, but the rendition by Harry Choates is the one that never leaves you."
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James Lee Burke |
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cb3e0fe
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Why don't you try to make me feel bad?
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James Lee Burke |
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54b7ad4
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a novel by Ron Hansen titled The Kid, the best story I ever read about the Lincoln County cattle wars.
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James Lee Burke |
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7a82d79
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If anyone tells you he's from New Orleans and doesn't drink, he's probably not from New Orleans. Louisiana is not a state; it's an outdoor mental asylum in which millions of people stay bombed most of their lives. That's not an exaggeration. Cirrhosis is a family heirloom.
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James Lee Burke |
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1d13fb6
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thankful
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James Lee Burke |
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5fb6927
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for anyone?
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James Lee Burke |
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61eb881
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he had kept encased in glass hanging from an
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James Lee Burke |
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330458a
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Mortality is not kind, and do not let anyone tell you it is.
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James Lee Burke |
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9021c9d
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Like many my age, I believe people in groups are to be feared and that arguing with others is folly and the knowledge of one generation cannot be passed down to the next.
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James Lee Burke |
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bcf4d5e
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She was one of those women who seemed to choose solitude and plainness over beauty, and anger over happiness.
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James Lee Burke |
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6e63caf
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Louisiana is not a state; it's an outdoor mental asylum in which millions of people stay bombed most of their lives. That's not an exaggeration. Cirrhosis is a family heirloom.
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James Lee Burke |
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116b8b6
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there are moments when we understand that the earth and the sky and the presences that may lie behind them are always with us.
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James Lee Burke |
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e718d7a
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while you're laying off the hooch and working the program, your disease is doing push-ups and waiting for the day you slip. You can ease back into the dirty boogie or hit the floor running, but I promise you, the electric tiger, or your version of it, will come back with a roar.
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James Lee Burke |
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31c65d3
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When I closed my eyes, a lantern lit up the inside of my head, as if I had punched a hypodermic loaded with morphine into my arm.
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James Lee Burke |
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3b1efe1
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one of the basic tenets of A.A.--that there is no possession more valuable than a sober sunrise, and any drunk who demands more out of life than that will probably
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James Lee Burke |
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417b076
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But as William Faulkner said, and as I was about to learn, the past is not only still with us, the past is not even the past. The warning call from Wally,
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James Lee Burke |
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29a732a
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arguing with others is folly and the knowledge of one generation cannot be passed down to the next. Those may seem cynical sentiments, but there are certain truths you keep inside you and do not defend lest you cheapen and then lose them altogether.
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James Lee Burke |
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036e1a1
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I could see the uncertainty, the fear about her job, her paycheck, her relationship with her boss, the prospect of offending people with power and authority over others, the dark figure sitting in the shadows at the end of the bar when it's closing time. I wondered how many people would understand her frame of reference.
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James Lee Burke |
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6f096eb
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Get a lot of gone between you and this situation.
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James Lee Burke |
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79f3dda
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Wars of enormous importance are fought in places nobody cares about.
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James Lee Burke |
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ae1ff30
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Sometimes if you listen, you can hear the earth stop, like it's waiting for you to catch up with it. Like it's your friend and it wants you to be at peace with it.
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James Lee Burke |
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58474d5
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Alcoholism is not a disease here but a venerated family heirloom.
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James Lee Burke |
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198c411
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Sometimes the father poured a sack full of dry rice on the floor and made Clete kneel on the kernels until sunrise; sometimes he sat on the side of the bed and gently touched Clete's face with a hand that was as callused as a carpenter's; sometimes he lay down beside Clete and wept as a child would.
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James Lee Burke |
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2ef4a5e
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Louisiana is not a state; it's an outdoor mental asylum in which millions of people stay bombed most of their lives.
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James Lee Burke |
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e06a9fa
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But a line sergeant told me something I never forgot. 'Don't think about it before it happens, and don't think about it when it's over.
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James Lee Burke |
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8acba2a
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The wind becomes your indispensable ally. When the trees and undergrowth and sometimes the elephant grass begin to thrash, the object that does not move or the shadow that remains like a tin cutout becomes the entity that is out there in the darkness, preparing to take your life. Except in this case, the presence on
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James Lee Burke |