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86090bd
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He wavin' at you, Dave. Hey, it's that drunk man done fell in the bayou the ot'er night. That man must surely love water.
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James Lee Burke |
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66ce836
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This piece of land was our original sin, except we had found no baptismal rite to expunge it from our lives.
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James Lee Burke |
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fad5f97
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I read a poem once that had a line in it about a white radiance that stains eternity.
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James Lee Burke |
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5d53849
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We get hurt worse by the people whom we care about. And they seldom mean to do it. That's what makes it so painful, kiddo.
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James Lee Burke |
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f892b23
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Saints don't heed warnings because they consider them irrelevant. Fools don't heed them because they think the lightning dancing across the sky, the thunder rolling through the woods, are only there to enhance their lives in some mysterious way.
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James Lee Burke |
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60ee526
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I had killed people before, in war and as a member of the New Orleans police department, and I know what it does to you. Like the hunter, you feel an adrenaline surge of pleasure at having usurped the province of God. The person who says otherwise is lying. But the emotional attitude you form later varies greatly among individuals. Some will keep their remorse alive and feed it as they would a living gargoyle, to assure themselves of their ..
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James Lee Burke |
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104280d
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jakes,
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James Lee Burke |
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6932adc
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I messed my pants," he said."
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James Lee Burke |
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25f4e74
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I went to the bathroom in my pants. That's what you done, man.
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James Lee Burke |
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10abc87
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No, I'm a coonass, my religion is shaky, and I've never hit the juice.
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James Lee Burke |
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8ec1ea9
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perdition,
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James Lee Burke |
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2311e07
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You don't realize the gift you have.
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James Lee Burke |
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8fcb180
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It's funny what can happen when you lay bare the heart and join the Earth's old dance through the heavens.
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James Lee Burke |
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9c6924e
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dipsomania,
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James Lee Burke |
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348e5b9
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solipsistic
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James Lee Burke |
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d85efc9
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Wicked men do not go away of their own accord.
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James Lee Burke |
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35c2f5d
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Don't borrow trouble.
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James Lee Burke |
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470bc57
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ken
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James Lee Burke |
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75232b2
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iniquitous.
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James Lee Burke |
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e75c431
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We're wayfaring strangers. We're born alone, we die alone.
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James Lee Burke |
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7a0b5a8
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odium,
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James Lee Burke |
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dc49308
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Night Comes to the Cumberland.
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James Lee Burke |
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5b4149d
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beautiful street in the Western world.
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James Lee Burke |
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942225b
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Straight shooters always win
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James Lee Burke |
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af1f330
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busthead
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James Lee Burke |
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1cc3331
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There may be room in government service for the altruist and the iconoclast, but I have yet to see one who was not treated as an oddity at best and at worst an object of suspicion and fear.
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James Lee Burke |
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947ccb8
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Be your own man, even if you don't add up to much.
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James Lee Burke |
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b838962
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meretricious
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James Lee Burke |
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1dcb9ef
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I've killed men against whom I had no grievance.
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James Lee Burke |
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ef84909
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If people stick together, they can always make do.
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James Lee Burke |
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678e299
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Shakespeare said that all power lies in the world of dreams, and I believe him.
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James Lee Burke |
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aab4411
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All our dreams and hopes become as naught, and evil men are allowed to hang their lanterns on our tombstones. What greater folly is there?
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James Lee Burke |
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ba6bdb7
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It's always today, Jim, and it's just going to get better and better," I said."
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James Lee Burke |
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50b36fe
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This piece of land was our original sin, except we had found no baptismal rite to expunge it from our lives. That green-purple field of new cane was rooted in rib cage and eye socket. But what of the others whose lives had begun here and ended in other places? The ones who became prostitutes in cribs on Hopkins Street in New Iberia and Jane's Alley in New Orleans, sliced their hands open with oyster knives, laid bare their shin bones with t..
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James Lee Burke |
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714f9ef
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Then millions of lights came on in the canyons, along the freeways, and through the vast sweep of the Los Angeles basin, and it was almost as if you were looking down upon the end point of the American dream, a geographical poem into which all our highways eventually led, a city of illusion founded by conquistadors and missionaries and consigned to the care of angels, where far below the spinning propellers of our seaplane black kids along ..
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James Lee Burke |
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9d4f5b8
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The armies of the night are faceless and mindless and the modern equivalent of Visigoths, but when they have a leader, their time in history rolls around again.
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James Lee Burke |
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6b69a82
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THE SUN HAD just crested on the horizon like a misplaced planet, swollen and molten and red, lighting a landscape that seemed sculpted out of clay and soft stone and marked by the fossilized tracks of animals with no names, when a tall barefoot man wearing little more than rags dropped his horse's reins and eased himself off the horse's back and worked his way down an embankment into a riverbed chained with pools of water that glimmered as ..
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James Lee Burke |
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dffc1a4
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The gift of Morpheus brought not only sleep but oblivion.
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James Lee Burke |
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ec9f1c9
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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. I can't be sure. I brood upon it and sleep little. I wait like a denied lover for the blue glow of dawn.
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James Lee Burke |
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7c49c9b
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resolution by itself is not enough; we are what we do, not what we think and feel.
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James Lee Burke |
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47d27db
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The false dawn, with its illusions and mist-wrapped softness, can be as inadequate and fleeting as Morpheus' gifts. CHAPTER 2 The days became warmer the first week in April, and on some mornings I went out on the salt at dawn and seined
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James Lee Burke |
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5a1947a
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The false dawn, with its illusions and mist-wrapped softness, can be as inadequate and fleeting as Morpheus' gifts.
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James Lee Burke |
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5bf713d
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fear is an irrational emotion that floats from object to object like a helium balloon that you touch with your fingertips.
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James Lee Burke |
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920489a
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I hit him so hard spittle and blood flew from his mouth onto a woman's blouse four feet away. I drove my fist into his kidney, a blow that made his back arch as though his spine had been broken, then I hooked him with a left below the eye and drove a right cross into his jaw that knocked him across a folding table.
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James Lee Burke |