91 Quotes by Jim Thompson

When life attains a crisis, man’s focus narrows.

Sure there’s a hell...

Existence and proof are inseparables. You have to have the second to have the first. I.

Maybe it don’t seem to make sense for a fella to be doing things for a reason that he don’t know about. But I reckon I’ve been doing it most of my life.

He had to hate them, to move the smothering shroud of hatred from himself to them. He closed the door of his room behind him, and almost snatched the drink from under the bed.

As for working with a partner, he didn’t like that either. It cut the score right down the middle. It put an apple on your head, and handed the other guy a shotgun. Because grifters, it seemed, suffered an irresistible urge to beat their colleagues. There was little glory in whipping a fool – hell, fools were made to be whipped. But to take a professional, even if it cost you in the long run, ah, that was something to polish your pride.

He’d had too much. He was too beaten. When they get that far gone, you’d better get in the final licks fast.

Well, anyway, by the time it got ready to vote, it looked like a fella wouldn’t be able to have no fun at all anymore, if my opponents were elected. About all a fella would be able to do, without getting arrested, was to drink sody-pop and maybe kiss his wife. And no one liked the idea very much, the wives included.

It was like being asleep when you were awake and awake when you were asleep. I’d pinch myself, figuratively speaking – I had to keep pinching myself. Then I’d wake up kind of in reverse; I’d go back to the nightmare I had to live in. And everything would be clear and reasonable.