I live in a blue-collar neighborhood, and if anyone knows what I do for a living, they don't seem to care.

If the storytellers told it true, all stories would end in death.

The crime part is the engine that moves the narrative and allows me to write the other things I want to write about.

We get schooled by the people around us, and it stays inside us deep.

Any time you have poverty, joblessness, sub-par public schools, and a lack of opportunity, you're going to have a high rate of crime.

I'm a better writer now because I've worked very hard at getting better. My long-range goal will always be to write better books.

I'm proud to be a crime novelist. What I've chosen is the best way to convey the questions I'm trying to raise.

The Next Right Thing has humanity, humor, and insight to burn. Author Dan Barden takes the clay of the California hard-boiled novel and shapes it into something new.

Top-shelf fiction, a Crown Royal ride into the heart of Night and New York. Con Lehane's work is reminiscent of the best of Lawrence Block, which is to say that this is very good stuff, indeed.

So you see, we are not free to choose our fate. There is a yoke to be borne and freedom is only an illusion. I am not free. God has put me here on earth for a reason.

What a good thing Adam had - when he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.

After so much suffering, after enduring so much sacrifice, sanctioned and embraced by our people, what is it that the people of East Timor expect as a result of independence?

There's always that struggle between me wanting to keep [song] new and fresh and then be - I can never get with pop songs being so repetitive.

In principle, if you understood the mechanisms of keeping things repaired, you could keep things going indefinitely.

People are interested in crime fiction when they're quite distanced from crime. People in Darfur are not reading murder mysteries.

I love him who reserveth no share of spirit for himself, but wanteth to be wholly the spirit of his virtue: thus walketh he as spirit over the bridge.

Your political system is actually too democratic. The fact that Americans vote on every bill and proposition can prolong bigotry indefinitely, especially where it is aimed at minority groups.

Looks can be decieving

Leave your thoughtlessness behind you then you may begin to understand. Clear the emptiness around you with the waving of your hand.