174 Quotes by James Lee Burke

Coincidence is your Higher Power acting with anonymity.

Did you know that the hum of a car engine through the metal and seats is approximately in B-flat, the same as the hum of blood in the arteries of a pregnant woman? That’s why children sleep so easily in the backseat of an automobile.

Never read bad stuff if you’re an artist; it will impair your own game.

Don’t undo a brave and noble deed. Don’t rob yourself of your own virtue.

As with all megalomaniacs, he had no handles. He was the type of man the Spanish call sin dios, sin verguenza, without God or shame.

There are not many places left in the United States where people can get off the computer, stop filing tax returns, and in effect become invisible. The rain forests in the Cascades and parts of West Montana come to mind, and perhaps the ‘Glades still offer hope to those who wish to resign from modern times. The other place is the Atchafalaya Basin.

It was the poem that explained the nature of courage and turned the mystery of death into a heroic couplet. Ultimately, it was the poem that banished fear from the heart and transformed us from actors into participants.

Never read bad stuff if you’re an artist; it will impair your own game. I don’t know if you ever played competitive tennis, but you learn not to watch bad tennis; it messes up your game. Art’s the same way.

Colored or not, we all pick the white man’s cotton.