Dennis Lehane quotes

Vanity is a weakness. I know this. It's a shallow dependence on the exterior self, on how one looks instead of what one is. I know this well...Vanity and dishonesty may be vices, but they're also the first forms of protection I ever knew. (Dennis Lehane)
There's something ugly about the flawless. View quote
Dennis Lehane
I held her, he wanted to say, and if I knew for certain that all it would take to hold her again would be to die, then I couldn't raise the gun to my head fast enough. View quote
Dennis Lehane
I'm a detective, but nuns could stonewall Sam Spade into an asylum. View quote
Dennis Lehane
Wickham is not an upwardly mobile community. It's dingy and gray as only a mill town can be. The streets are the color of a shoe bottom, and the only way to tell the difference between the bars and the homes is to look for the neon signs in the windows. The roads and sidewalks are uneven, the tar cracked and pale. Many of the people, especially the workers as they trudge home from the mills in the dying light, have the look of those who've long ago gotten used to the fact that no one remembers them. It's a place where the people are grateful for the seasons, because at least they confirm that time is actually moving on. View quote
Dennis Lehane
And he hated himself and hated her,too, for the ruin they'd made of each other. View quote
Dennis Lehane
Which would be worse - to live as a monster, or to die as a good man? View quote
Dennis Lehane
This world can only give me reminders of what I don't have, can never have, didn't have for long enough. View quote
Dennis Lehane
You've learned that every good lie is threaded with truth and every accepted truth leaks lies. View quote
Dennis Lehane
That's the thing about being a victim; you start to think it'll happen to you on a regular basis. It's living with the reality of your own vulnerability, and it sucks. View quote
Dennis Lehane
I loved this woman the way you love ... well, nothing," he said, a note of suprise in his voice. "You can't compare that kind of love to anything, can you? It's its own unique gift. (Dennis Lehane)
Happiness comes in moments, & then it's gone until the next time. Could be years. But sadness settles it. View quote
Dennis Lehane
I normally can't stand vice-free people. They conflate a narcissistic instinct for self-preservation with moral superiority. Plus they suck the life right out of a party. View quote
Dennis Lehane
In Greek tragedy, they fall from great heights. In noir, they fall from the curb. View quote
Dennis Lehane
There are threads in our lives. You pull one, and everything else gets affected. View quote
Dennis Lehane
Maybe there are some things we were put on this earth not to know. View quote
Dennis Lehane
I have a lot of rage about things that didn't happen to me, tied up with watching an immigrant, working-class father struggle to make his way through the world - and seeing how society was modeled to keep him in his place. View quote
Dennis Lehane
Catch me on a good day, I think half of my books aren't too bad. Catch me on a bad day, I think I've never written a good line. View quote
Dennis Lehane
The world does not have tidy endings. The world does not have neat connections. It is not filled with epiphanies that work perfectly at the moment that you need them. View quote
Dennis Lehane
I love to write, so it rarely seems like work - even when it gets arduous. View quote
Dennis Lehane
Everyone sees different things. (Dennis Lehane)
The brain controls pain. It controls fear. Sleep. Empathy. Hunger. Everything we associate with the heart or the soul or the nervous system is actually controlled by the brain. Everything. What if you could control it? View quote
Dennis Lehane
What molds us is what maims us. View quote
Dennis Lehane
She was afraid of all that and so much more, but what terrified her most was inside of her, an insect of unnatural intelligence who'd been living in her brain her entire life, playing with it, clicking across it, wrenching loose its cables on a whim. View quote
Dennis Lehane
How many psychiatrists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” "I don't know. How many?” "Eight.” "Why?” "Oh, stop overanalyzing it. View quote
Dennis Lehane