174 Quotes by James Lee Burke

The human spirit is frail. People believe whatever they need to believe. I feel sorry for all of them.

Cruelty and sentimentality are almost always companion characteristics in an individual but never cruelty and love.

Deviants and monsters ran the camps where families were sent up the chimney or turned into bars of soap, but they would have been powerless without the clerks who sat anonymously behind typewriters and gave them bureaucratic legitimacy.

We decry violence all the time in this country, but look at our history. We were born in a violent revolution, and we’ve been in wars ever since. We’re not a pacific people.

People were not what they said. They were not what they thought. They were not what they promised. People were what they did. When the final tally was done, nothing else mattered.

Mexico was not a country, Krill thought. It was a revolution that had never stopped.

The wrong people always worry. The people who are the real problem never worry about anything.

There are certain kinds of currency you acquire in life. Most of it is ephemeral. But friendship and faith in the unseen world and the commitment to be true unto thine own self are the human glue that you never give up, not for any reason.

When you love somebody, you give up making decisions just for yourself.