174 Quotes by James Lee Burke

That’s one of the great advantages of age. You can say, I don’t want to, I don’t care, you can throw temper tantrums, and nobody minds.

I wanted to believe he was mad. Unfortunately, I no longer knew what madness was.

This is Louisiana, Dave. Guatemala North. Quit pretending it’s the United States. Life will make a lot more sense,” he said.

Hope was the light that allowed man to prevail in the worst of circumstances. But it also could become the narcotic of the self-deluded and the naive.

There is no higher form of artistic expression then film.

I wouldn’t write anything autobiographical. If you’ve lived a life like Laurence of Arabia, it might be a consideration, but otherwise it’s a little bit vain, it seems to me.

Mortality is not kind, and do not let anyone tell you it is. If there is such a thing as wisdom, and I have serious doubts about its presence in my own life, it lies in the acceptance of the human condition and perhaps the knowledge that those who have passed on are still with us, out there in the mist, showing us the way, sometimes uttering a word of caution from the shadows, sometimes visiting us in our sleep, as bright as a candle burning inside a basement that has no windows.

Today, there are more opportunities for writers in terms of access to larger success, but it’s more difficult to publish a literary novel in the lower ranges. In other words, you almost have to hit a home run. You can hit a triple, maybe, but nobody’s interested in a single.

If you put somebody on a crack pipe and give them a 9 mm Baretta, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going to happen next.