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.

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.

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.

A series of failures may culminate in the best possible result.

The best path through life is the highway.

We shall serve for the joy of serving, prosperity shall flow to us and through us in unending streams of plenty.

The work of restoration cannot begin until a problem is fully faced.

We need to challenge our own thinking.

If you look at American studios, the big productions have nothing to do with reality.

I'm making little changes in my life to take care of myself, like putting in a mile or two on my treadmill every day.

If you want to find out what a writer or a cartoonist really feels, look at his work. That's enough.

My life is short. I can't listen to banality.

Produce great men, the rest follows.