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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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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 |
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6c0973a
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But as John Steinbeck had said long ago, we had come to fear a man with a hole in his shoe.
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James Lee Burke |
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9eee765
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Instead, he lived inside his loneliness
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James Lee Burke |
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566a895
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A man is what he does. Titles are a distraction created to deceive obtuse people.
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James Lee Burke |
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aeee487
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These thoughts robbed the light from my eyes,
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James Lee Burke |
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c18cdc0
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gandy dancers
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James Lee Burke |
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66a226c
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the crowd, bathed in light, his posture and trim
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James Lee Burke |
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e23beea
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The woman considered the wisest person in old New Orleans was a witch by the name of Marie LeVeau.
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James Lee Burke |
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4e0e7dd
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crowd again. "I think we blew an opportunity. But maybe"
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James Lee Burke |
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fce2fc0
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I didn't mind being alone. Solitude and peace with oneself are probably the only preparation one has for death.
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James Lee Burke |
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18f6905
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about voices that can cry out for help in our sleep.
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James Lee Burke |
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3d98a6a
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money and money and money, the one item that human beings will go to any lengths to acquire.
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James Lee Burke |
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6142766
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PEOPLE ARE WHAT they do, not what they think, not what they say.
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James Lee Burke |
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056ccee
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Sometimes when that kind of evil comes into our lives, we can't explain it, so we blame it on God or ourselves. In both cases we're wrong. Maybe it's time you let yourself out of prison.
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James Lee Burke |
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742b275
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At age nineteen I did not want to accept the possibility that a man's murder could be treated with the social significance of a hangnail that had been snipped off someone's finger.
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James Lee Burke |
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c9280fd
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We are the sum total of what we have done and where we have been, and I sincerely believe that in many ways the world in which I grew up was better than the one in which we live today.
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James Lee Burke |
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86e70e3
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As a police officer it has been my experience that pedophiles are able to operate and stay functional over long periods of time and victimize scores, even hundreds, of children, because no one wants to believe his or her own intuitions about the symptoms in the perpetrator.
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James Lee Burke |
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b101cfa
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It's fair to say that mortality takes many manifestations, but so does the indomitable nature of the human spirit, and it does so in ways that are sometimes hardly noticeable.
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James Lee Burke |
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4bebaef
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said. "Whatdid you say?" she said. He shifted his rifle to his left hand and spun her in the opposite direction, then pushed her hard between the shoulder blades, snapping her head back. When she"
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James Lee Burke |
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752429d
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Those who live with insomnia and who consider sleep both an enemy and a gift will understand the following. Some of us cannot comprehend how anyone except the very good or those who have no conscience at all can sleep from dark to dawn without dreaming or waking. We hear William Blake's tiger padding softly through a green jungle, his stripes glowing, his whiskers spotted with gore. Psychoanalysis does no good. Neither does a health regimen..
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James Lee Burke |
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c5bbf67
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Whenever I hear and see a politician or a military leader, a bank of American flags at his back, trying to convince us of the rightness of a policy or a deed that will cause harm to others; when I am almost convinced myself that setting humanitarian concern in abeyance can be justified in the interest of a greater good, I pause and ask myself what my brain-smoked friends would have to say.
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James Lee Burke |
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8bb9f2c
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vituperative
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James Lee Burke |
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805c599
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scullions
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James Lee Burke |
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c69d4c8
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He was riding back through a doorway in time to a place that had nothing to do with the airplanes, and motorized vehicle and telephones wires, and radios that surrounded him now....... The woods in late autumn had become his private sun dappled cathedral, one that contained presences antithetical to the conventional notion of a church.
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James Lee Burke |