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8b35c94
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believe long ago had decided it was better to be first in Gaul rather than second in Rome.
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James Lee Burke |
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44a3d58
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Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
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James Lee Burke |
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9e7bd95
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But if Cholo Ramirez was indeed intended to embark on the Ghost Trail of his Indian ancestors, its entrance was not marked by cottonwood trees along a riverbank on a windswept green plain. The Ghost Trail for Cholo lay inside the incessant scream of a shorted-out car horn and the heated smell of car metal and exhaust fumes and asphalt only a block from the Alamo. That's where the paramedics pried his hands off the steering wheel of his '49 ..
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James Lee Burke |
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9883181
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his motor control still functioned but his soul went somewhere else.
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James Lee Burke |
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5cde3d7
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just another gargoyle that took up temporary residence in Danny Boy's dreams and went away. "Some people say insomnia is a disorder."
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James Lee Burke |
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790ab42
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At some point in your life, you have to give up anger or it will destroy your spirit the way cancer destroys living tissue.
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James Lee Burke |
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a2b6bf2
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Mexico was not a country, Krill thought. It was a revolution that had never stopped.
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James Lee Burke |
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6a37b36
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past Louis Armstrong Park, a place no white person in his right mind enters either day or night,
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James Lee Burke |
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781c87a
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Advice might be cheap, but there is nothing facile about the faith of those to whom we give it.
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James Lee Burke |
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c57d385
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Pray that liars aren't kept a long time in purgatory
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James Lee Burke |
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9cd34c6
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I would like to believe that there is a resolution in the human tragedy and that order can be reimposed upon the earth in the same way it occurs in the fifth act of the Elizabethan drama that supposedly mirrors our lives. My experience has been otherwise. History seldom corrects itself in its own sequence, and when we mete out justice, we often do it in a fashion that perpetuates the evil of the transgressors and breathes new life into the ..
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James Lee Burke |
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35c7214
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Barbara Shanahan, sometimes known as Battering Ram Shanahan. She was over six feet tall and had freckles and wore her light red hair cut short and wore a blue suit with white hose. She worked hard and was a good prosecutor, and I had always wanted to like her. But she seldom smiled and she went about her job with the abrasiveness of a carpenter building coffins with a nail gun.
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James Lee Burke |
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c31abc4
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The rain spun in the yellow arc lights over the cafe parking lot. It was empty inside, except for a fat Negro woman whom I could see through the service window in the kitchen, and a pretty, redheaded waitress in her early twenties, dressed in a pink uniform with her hair tied up on her freckled neck. She was obviously tired, but she was polite and smiled at me when she took my order, and I felt a sense of guilt, almost shame, at my suscepti..
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attraction
lonliness
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James Lee Burke |
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65ac0f2
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I don't like to bust drunk drivers. I don't like to listen to their explanations, watch their pitiful attempts to affect sobriety, or see the sheen of fear break out in their eyes when they realize they're headed for the drunk tank with little to look forward to in the morning except the appearance of their names in the newspaper. Or maybe in truth I just don't like to see myself when I look into their faces.
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James Lee Burke |
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e1acb84
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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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0e1f37a
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I love you, bwana, but sometimes I think I committed an unpardonable sin in a former life, and you were put here to give me a second chance.
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James Lee Burke |
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463e080
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He had learned in Vietnam there were three groups of people who got you killed--pencil pushers, amateurs, and idealists.
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James Lee Burke |
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1f1cf41
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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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38eedf3
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Gamblers and lovers pay big dues and enjoy limited consolations. But sometimes they are enough.
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James Lee Burke |
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64b2365
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Baptized Christians ran the ovens in the camps.
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James Lee Burke |
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40a372b
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At heart they were secular Calvinists and believed their fellow man was born in a degraded state; consequently, they oversaw atrocities with equanimity and substituted pragmatism for compassion and slept the sleep of the dead.
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James Lee Burke |
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37088d9
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He knows things don't happen in order, like past, present, and future.
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James Lee Burke |
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c64d9c3
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They seemed to have the coloration and texture of the rubber in a pencil eraser. They
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James Lee Burke |
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bd90dc4
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At a certain time in your life, you accept the fact that lunacy comes in many forms.
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James Lee Burke |
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993aafd
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when it comes to understanding the mysteries of creation or the fact that light can enter the eye and form an image in the brain and send a poetic tendril down the arm into a clutch of fingers that could write the Shakespearean sonnets.
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James Lee Burke |
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5c1bfb5
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Besides, isn't it better to let evil die inside its own flame?
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James Lee Burke |
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eb73211
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I was not simply tired of the world's iniquity. I was tired of greed in particular and the ostentatious display of wealth that characterizes our times, and the justifications for despoiling the earth and injuring our fellow man.
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James Lee Burke |
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a4ca216
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What we do is punish the people who are available," she said."
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James Lee Burke |
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164836c
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symbolize the ruinous consequence of America's decision to abandon the republic that the entire world admired and loved.
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James Lee Burke |
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7d779da
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But the past is the past, and you don't get it back.
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James Lee Burke |
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6de96b5
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Jolie Blon," the most haunting and unforgettable lament I have ever heard."
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James Lee Burke |
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58c0cfa
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I still wanted to believe George Orwell's admonition that people are always better than we think they are.
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James Lee Burke |
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83c97d3
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A tanker truck appeared far down the wavy surface of the highway, headlights on, its weight and shimmering cylindrical shape and dedicated purpose so great and unrelenting that it seemed to move and jitter against the sun's afterglow without sound or mechanically driven power, sustained by its own momentum, as though the truck had a destiny that had been planned long ago.
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James Lee Burke |
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e3a72f6
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Hackberry tried to convince himself that Collins was dead, his body long ago eaten by coyotes or lost inside the bowels of the earth. Regardless, Hackberry told himself, Collins belonged in the past or the place in the collective unconscious where most demons had their origins. If evil was actually a separate and self-sustaining entity, he thought, its manifestation was in the nationalistic wars that not only produced the greatest suffering..
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James Lee Burke |
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a6a687c
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if you haven't noticed, the United States government is the biggest weapons manufacturer in the world.
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James Lee Burke |
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e0ae88b
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each morning is a blessing, as votive in nature as a communion wafer raised to the sky.
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James Lee Burke |
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8ef502d
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THE TAILINGS OF the monsoon season moved across the sun that evening, darkening and wetting the land and lighting the sky with electricity that quivered and disappeared between the buttes and the clouds.
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James Lee Burke |
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57178b8
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what do you say to people who are doing their best when their best is not enough?
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James Lee Burke |
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bbcba58
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Women are the perfect creation. I don't care who hears that. Even before I hit puberty, they lived nightly in my dreams, and I have the feeling they'll live with me in the grave.
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James Lee Burke |
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97ae83e
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The Great Whore of Babylon is a commanding mistress. Once she widens her thighs and takes you inside her, she never lets go.
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James Lee Burke |
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60668e6
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More important, it's a place where there are no victims. Everyone there knows the rules and the
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James Lee Burke |
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b875643
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spent the rest of the afternoon in my room. A faucet was ticking in the bathroom as loudly as a mechanical clock, with the same sense of urgency and waste. I tried to tighten the
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James Lee Burke |
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18e4f9b
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How do you get mad at a man who speaks in Petrarchan sonnets?
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James Lee Burke |
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3672592
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According to legend, he had worn elegant clothes and spoken Parisian French and had his land and wealth stolen from him by carpetbaggers after the war.
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James Lee Burke |