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.

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

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.

I am strong and human with a mouth that works like a man’s and a more intelligible brain, and I demand to be heard.

Behind your greatest fears lie your greatest rewards.

When you understand the mechanincs of stress and master the techniques to manipulate someone's fears and dreams, you will be powerful.

Oh, it's called, em...' Kate thinks, 'I can't remember what it's called.''You're the same as me, ' Dad says to her. 'You've got CRAFT too.''What's that?''Can't. Remember. A. Fuc-

Freedom is the last, best hope of earth.

I don't think opposites attract. I think like attracts like. So I don't think that they do attract, opposites. Only when you're talking about magnetic poles.

The privileges of the side-table included the small prerogatives of sitting next to the toast, and taking two cups of tea to other people's one.

There can be no peace, no stability as long as occupation and aggression continue.

By trying to do too much, you risk not doing enough.

The effects of infantile instruction are, like those of syphilis, never completely cured.