Quotes by Dennis Lehane

It’s impossible to park on Tremont or even idle there for more than thirty seconds. A platoon of meter maids, imported from the female Hitler Youth shortly after the fall of Berlin, roam the street, at least two to a block, pit bull faces on top of fire hydrant bodies, just waiting for someone stupid enough to stall traffic on their street.

How many psychiatrists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” “I don’t know. How many?” “Eight.” “Why?” “Oh, stop overanalyzing it.

I think if a man beats you and fucks half the women he sees and no one will help you, axing him isn’t the least understandable thing you can do.

Chuck said, “Hey. How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” Cawley looked over at him. “I’ll bite. How many?” “Fish,” Chuck said and let loose a bright bark of a laugh.

Got us a full moon too coming tomorrow night. Just make things a whole lot worse. All we need.- Why is that?- What’s that, Marshal?- The full moon. You think it makes people crazy?- I know it does.- Found a wrinkle in one of the pages and used his index finger to smooth it out.- How come?- Well, you think about it—the moon affects the tide, right?- Sure.- Has some sort of magnet effect or something on water.- I’ll buy that.- Human brain,- Trey said, - is over fifty percent water.- No kidding?- No kidding. You figure ol’ Mr. Moon can jerk the ocean around, think what it can do to the head.

Maybe thats what love is-counting the bandages until someone says, Enough.

Joe knew what the nod meant-this was why they became outlaws. To live moments the insurance salesman of the world, the truck drivers, and lawyers and bank tellers and carpenters and realtors would never know. Moments in a world without nets-none to catch you and none to envelop you. Joe looked at Dion and recalled what he’d felt after the first time they’d knocked over that newsstand on Bowdoin Street when they were thirteen years old, We will probably die young.

He’d never wanted kids. Outside of priority boarding on an airline, he couldn’t see the upside to them. They took over your life and filled you with terror and weariness and people acted like having one was a blessed event and talked about them in the reverent tones they once reserved for gods. When it came down to it, though, you had to remember that all those assholes cutting you off in traffic and walking the streets and shouting in bars and turning their music up too loud and mugging you and raping you and selling you lemon cars—all those assholes were just children who’d aged. No miracle. Nothing sacred in that.

Thats the thing about being a victim; you start to think itll happen to you on a regular basis. Its living with the reality of your own vulnerability, and it sucks.

Danny could see it in their faces when they shook Steve’s hand—they’d have preferred him dead. Death allowed for the illusion of heroism. The maimed turned that illusion into an uncomfortable odor.

Patrick Kenzie asking a bemused waitress for a newspaper in smalltown USA. It’s like a homepage without a scroll button?

He was broad-shouldered, dark-haired and dark-eyed; more than once, women had been noted openly regarding him, and not just immigrant women or those who smoked in public.

The sound of her breathing reminded me, as it so often did, of how vulnerable she was. And how vulnerable we were because of how much we loved her. The fear - that something could happen to her at any moment, something Id be helpless to stop - had become so omnipresent in my life that I sometimes pictured it growing, like a third arm, out of the center of my chest.

When a woman once asked Joe how he could come from such a magnificent home and such a good family and still become a gangster, Joes answer was two-pronged: (a) he wasnt a gangster, he was an outlaw; (b) he came from a magnificent house not a magnificent home.

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 won the parental lottery. Most of the kids I grew up with either came from really fractured homes, or really violent ones. I went home to a very traditional, good Irish Catholic family.

“Happiness doesnt lie in conspicuous consumption and the relentless amassing of useless crap. Happiness lies in the person sitting beside you and your ability to talk to them. Happiness is clear-headed human interaction and empathy. Happiness is home. And home is not a house-home is a mythological conceit. It is a state of mind. A place of communion and unconditional love. It is where, when you cross its threshold, you finally feel at peace.”