269 Quotes by Dennis Lehane

I will not dream anymore, you said. I will not set myself up for the pain. But then your team made the playoffs, or you saw a movie, or a billboard glowing dusky orange and advertising Aruba, or a girl who bore more than a passing resemblance to a woman you'd dated in high school— a woman you'd loved and lost— danced above you with shimmering eyes, and you said, fuck it, let's dream just one more time.

We live in a world of disposable memory, nothing's built to last, not even shame.

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.

She felt like weeping. She didn't know why at first, but then it hit her.He knew her.He knew her, this man she'd married, this man she'd committed herself to walking through this life with. He knew her.And—wonder of wonders—he was still here.

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.

But Curtis had come to the table with something they’d never expected, something they would have thought outmoded and out-lived in the modern age: a kind of fundamental righteousness that only the fundamental possessed. Unfettered by doubt, it achieved the appearance of moral intelligence and a resolute conscience. The terrible thing was how small it made you feel, how weaponless. How could you fight righteous rage if the only arms you bore were logic and sanity?

Teddy wished that his mother were still alive so she could teach her grandkids you had to get hard, strong. The world didn't give a shit. It didn't bestow. It took.

People were lost and people were scared and their lynch ropes couldn't reach bankers or stockbrokers, so they looked for targets closer to home.

A pretty face had been damaged by acne scars and she wore and extra forty pounds on her frame like a threat. Her eyes were dull with anger disguised as apathy. If she kept on her current path, she'd grow into the type of person who fed her kids Doritos for breakfast and purchased angry bumper stickers with lots of exclamation points. But right now, she was just another in a long line of pissed-off small-town girls with a shitty outlook.