Mcbain Quotes

I would not regret putting a hole in your arrogant chest, only it would be deflected when it hit that piece of rock you call a heart.

Any new corpses today?" "None yet." "Pity. I’m getting so I miss my morning coffee and corpse.

Oft in the stilly night, Ere Slumber's chain has bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me; The smiles, the tears, Of boyhood years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shown Now dimmed and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken. (from When the Splendor Falls by Laurie McBain)

Sarcasm is a weapon of the intellectual,

We got enough champagne here to start a France.

The body lay outside an abandoned, boarded-up theater. The theater had started as a first-run movie house, many years back when the neighborhood had still been fashionable. As the neighborhood began rotting, the theater began showing second-run films, and then old movies, and finally foreign-language films.

So, here I am. Awake in the dark , twisting the knife in my wounds. What a goddamn delight life really is.

It all started in Florida. Of course. Fucking Florida.

Drugs and stealing go together like bagels and lox.

It always rains on Mondays anyway. Monday is the bitchingest day in the week and should be struck completely from the calendar.

McBain, John D. MacDonald, Chester Himes, and Richard S. Prather; steamy melodramas like Peyton Place

Are you hungry?” “A little,” I paused, “and thirsty.” “Miss Collins will get you some dinner. And a glass of milk.” “Milk?” I said. I tried to raise my eyebrows but even that hurt. “Milk,” the doctor repeated.

Er war blind dafür, so wie für die meisten schönen Dinge, denn die Gier hatte seine Seele überwuchert und alles andere verdrängt.

That's the funny thing about life - getting over the fear of death is the hard part. After that, it's easy.

Menschen haben das Recht, anders zu sein - sogar radikal anders -, vorausgesetzt sie fügen anderen durch ihre Taten keinen Schaden zu.

But The Preacher operated on the theory that if you told a big enough lie often enough, people would accept it as the truth.

There are all kinds of feathers. There are chicken feathers, and duck feathers, and quail feathers, and goose feathers, and flamingo feathers, and horse feathers, and even Leonard Feathers.

The widow of Michael Reardon was a full‐breasted woman in her late thirties. She had dark hair and green eyes, and an Irish nose spattered with a clichéful of freckles. She had a face for merry‐go‐rounds and roller coaster rides, a face that could split in laughter and girlish glee when water was splashed on her at the seashore. She was a girl who could get drunk sniffing the vermouth cork before it was passed over a martini. She was a girl who went to church on Sundays, a girl who’d belonged to the Newman Club when she was younger, a girl who was a virgin two days after Mike

Ed McBain (as Evan Hunter and Richard Marsten), Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Andrew Vachss, Loren D. Estleman, Carroll John Daly, Brett Halliday, Raoul Whitfield, Mark Timlin, Richard Prather, Leigh Brackett, Erle Stanley Gardner (pre Perry Mason), James Ellroy, Clark Howard, Max Brand. In addition, rising paper costs prevented me from making this volume even heavier, as I had to withdraw material by Ed Gorman, James Reasoner, Ed Lacy, Frank Gruber, Loren D. Estleman, Derek Raymond, Robert Edmond Alter, Frederick C. Davis and Jonathan Craig – so look out for these names elsewhere. They are certainly worth a detour. But the

Long before any genius producer began singing the blues on an imaginary hill in an unnamed city where a mix of a dozen or so cops came and went in what was known to script writers as “the usual squadroom boil,” Cop Hater set the tone and the pattern for a police series in which—so far as I was concerned—there were no restrictions on content or style.

Il y a bien eu un sursaut, au début du millénaire, avec la littérature policière. La vraie, celle qui tentait de recréer une mythologie de notre époque, les livres de Jean-Claude Izzo et les valeurs de vivre à Marseille, de Leonardo Padura et les soubresauts de l’histoire à travers les rues de La Havane, les romans absolument postmodernes et tellement jubilatoires de Daniel Pennac, la profondeur de l’épopée humaine d’Ed McBain.

I said I didn’t know about any of that but sure would fancy another of those pills. Come with us then, Miranda said. The McBains in the gully paused to listen. As did the cows. As did, somehow, the barn. I was so tired and had been tired for ever so long. I believe I will come with, I said.

arrived

«Δεν υπήρχε πια το χωνευτήρι, αυτή ήταν η τραγωδία. Υποτίθεται ότι θα τους δεχόμασταν όλους, θα τους καλωσορίζαμε με ανοιχτές αγκάλες, θα τους σφίγγγαμε πάνω μας, με τη στοργή που δείχνουμε στους δικούς μας ανθρώπους, θα σφυρηλατήσουμε από χιλιάδες φυλές, μια μοναδική δυνατή, παλλόμενη φυλή. Αυτή ήταν η αρχική ιδέα. Καθόλου κακή, εδώ που τα λέμε. Ένας λαός. Μια καλή, ευπρεπής, τολμηρή και έντιμη φυλή. Κάπου όμως στα μισά του δρόμου η ιδέα άρχισε να ξεφτάει. Είχε κρατήσει πιο πολύ από τις περισσότερες ιδέες στην Αμερική, όπου όλα τελούν υπό καθεστώς μονίμου μεταβολής. Στην Αμερική υπάρχει πάντα ένας καινούριος πρόεδρος ή ένας καινούριος πόλεμος ή ένα καινούριο σίριαλ ή ένα καινούριο τοκ-σόου ή ένας καινούριος καταπληκτικός συγγραφέας. Μπροστά στον συντριπτικό πλούτο ιδεών που κατακλύζουν συνεχώς την Αμερική, μέρα και νύχτα, νύχτα και μέρα, δεν ήταν τόσο αξιοπερίεργο που οι άνθρωποι άρχισαν να σκέφτονται ότι η ιδέα να συγχωνεύσουμε όλα αυτά τα διαφορετικά χρώματα, τις γλώσσες και τους πολιτισμούς, ίσως να μην ήταν τελικά και τόσο καταπληκτική. Πιθανότατα τότε άρχισε να σβήνει και η δυνατή ζεστή φλόγα που έκανε να βράζει το θεόρατο καζάνι -όπως θα μπορούσε να χαρακτηρίσει κανείς αυτή την πόλη-λιμάνι εισόδου- ώσπου χαμήλωσε τόσο ώστε δεν έφτανε για την τήξη. Η τρέχουσα καταπληκτική ιδέα ήταν να διατηρήσουμε ιερή και ξεχωριστή την κληρονομιά των μακρινών τόπων και των ξένων γλωσσών. Όχι να συνεισφέρουμε τους θησαυρούς αυτούς στη μοναδική φυλή, όχι να μοιραστούμε αυτόν τον πλούτο με τα άλλα μέλη αυτής της μεγάλης φυλής, αλλά να προστατέψουμε την κάθε ορδή από τις άλλες ορδές, να κρατήσουμε αυτή την περιουσία παντού και πάντα τεμαχισμένη. Ενώ το “χώρια αλλά ίσοι” ήταν κάποτε μια περιφρονημένη έννοια, τώρα την βλέπαμε σαν κάτι που θα μπορούσε να αποτελέσει κίνητρο για έναν ολόκληρο λαό. Χώρια, φίλε! Φτάνει όμως να είμαστε ίσοι. Ενώ κάποτε το ευγενές ιδανικό του “Συνασπισμού του Ουράνιου Τόξου”(Rainbow Coalition) πυροδοτούσε μιαν εικόνα με στρώματα διαφορετικών χρωμάτων να διασχίζουν μαζί τον ουρανό σε μια αδιάρρηκτη ενότητα που οδηγούσε στον κοινό θησαυρό, η απονευρωμένη έκφραση “τεράστιο μωσαϊκό” πυροδοτούσε τώρα ένα περιορισμένο όραμα με μικρές ψηφίδες χρωμάτων, χωρισμένων μεταξύ τους, με την κάθε μονάδα ασφαλή μέσα στη δική της λάμψη και ομορφιά, χωρίς καμιά να συνεισφέρει στην ευρύτερη σύλληψη ενός μοναδικού και αξιόλογου συνόλου. Ενώ κάποτε οι άνθρωποι χτυπούσαν την πόρτα της ευκαιρίας και φώναζαν “ξεχάστε ότι είμαστε μαύροι, ξεχάστε ότι είμαστε Λατίνοι, ξεχάστε ότι είμαστε Ασιάτες!”, οι ίδιοι άνθρωποι φώναζαν τώρα “μην ξεχνάτε ότι είμαστε μαύροι, μην ξεχνάτε ότι είμαστε Λατίνοι, μην ξεχνάτε ότι είμαστε Ασιάτες!” Ενώ κάποτε ένιωθες περηφάνια και τιμή και αξιοπρέπεια και ελπίδα που ήσουν Αμερικάνος, τώρα ένιωθες μόνο απόγνωση γι' αυτό που έγινε η Αμερική. Δεν ήταν λοιπόν καθόλου αξιοπερίεργο που οι μετανάστες θυμούνταν τα πάτρια εδάφη τους πιο ήσυχα και σταθερά απ' ό,τι είχαν υπάρξει ποτέ στην πραγματικότητα. Δεν ήταν καθόλου αξιοπερίεργο που προτιμούσαν να αγκιστρώνονται από μια εθνική ταυτότητα που την ένιωθαν αιωνίως ίδια και απαράλλαχτη, αντί να παρασύρονται από τις μαλακίες του ενός και αδιαίρετου έθνους, με ελευθερία και δικαιοσύνη για όλους.»

Ed McBain

I’ve perpetually found myself convinced that I can’t live a life that makes sense without understanding my imminent death and making a real effort to incorporate the idea of mortality into my worldview. I feel like if I don’t connect with that, my life gets lost in a series of fast food moments – my actions and relationships and thoughts veer toward easy answers, perpetual consumption, comfort and convenience valued above all else with no sense of meaning underneath. I forget to hold onto the passion of being alive, falling into taking it for granted, into that grind of production and consumption that becomes daily life. Everything becomes easy, neat, packaged, tidy, thoughtless. Every day becomes the same thing, the same color and shape and taste, like life itself should come with fries if you want them. And

But deep down she knew, the meek did not inherit. The meek got eaten by the monsters, until eventually there were only monsters left.

In so many ways he’d lived like he would live forever. He’d taken his time for granted on one hand and simultaneously not fully indulged, not fully embraced his passions on the other. It was the worst of both worlds.

a montage of images playing in his head with the saturation turned way up so the colors were brighter than real life.

There were no words for the weight these memories piled on his shoulders and chest, no words to capture the sense of great fortune and misfortune he felt all at once, a mix of the best and worst luck—the best in knowing her at all, the worst in having her torn away

If you want to fight anything in this system, just make sure it’s the hill you’re willing to die on.

There are moments in life when two paths lie before you,” he said. “Moments where you pick your path and you can never go back. So take a good look at what you’ve got, on the inside and on the outside, before you make the choice, because everything you’ve got, all of it — that’s what you stand to lose if you pick wrong.

She felt the pull of sleep urging her to close her eyes. It reminded her of standing on the beach when she was a kid, and how the waves would lap over her feet. As the water retreated, the sand around her toes drained away with it, and the magnetic draw of the tide tugged at her feet.

She got that urge she used to get as a kid — like she knew there was nothing there, it was just her imagination, but she better run up the last few stairs as fast as she could, just in case.

How could he let consciousness go? It was all he knew, all he’d ever known. The idea of pulling a trigger and vanquishing it? Of shutting off his brain? Of black nothing forever

Dudley Do-Right-ing must get exhausting, right?

he somehow saw the future as a transparent layer laid atop the present.

Georgie’s grandfather had been born in Italy, and lived in America for five years before he got his citizenship papers, at which time he could rightfully be called an Italian-American. In Georgie’s eyes, this was the only time the hyphenate could be used properly. His parents had been born here of Italian-American parents, but this did not make them similarly Italian-Americans, it made them simply Americans

Matthew said, “Torrance is claiming his wife obtained an ex parte divorce that is not a binding one. According to him, they were still married at the time of her death. Under Florida law, and as a surviving spouse, he now intends to elect a statutory share of her estate. At least, that’s what Mrs. Donovan told me.” “You understand I can neither affirm nor deny that.” “Of course. You’re aware, though, that in Florida, the statutory share is thirty percent of the fair market value of the net estate.” “Yes, I’m aware of that,” D’Allessandro said. “The major part of Willa Torrance’s

So shall it be.

turned

The city could be nothing but a woman, and that’s good because your business is women. You know her tossed head in the auburn crowns of molting autumn foliage, Riverhead, and the park. You know the ripe curve of her breast where the River Dix molds it with a flashing bolt of blue silk. Her navel winks at you from the harbor in Bethtown, and you have been intimate with the twin loins of Calm’s Point and Majesta. She is a woman, and she is your woman, and in the fall she wears a perfume of mingled wood smoke and carbon dioxide, a musky, musty smell bred of her streets and of her machines and of her people. You have known her fresh from sleep, clean and uncluttered. You have seen her naked streets, have heard the sullen murmur of the wind in the concrete canyons of Isola, have watched her come awake, alive, alive. You have seen her dressed for work, and you have seen her dressed for play, and you have seen her sleek and smooth as a jungle panther at night, her coat glistening with the pinpoint jewels of reflected harbor light. You have known her sultry, and petulant, and loving and hating, and defiant, and meek, and cruel and unjust, and sweet, and poignant. You know all of her moods and all of her ways. She is big and sprawling and dirty sometimes, and sometimes she shrieks in pain, and sometimes she moans in ecstasy. But she could be nothing but a woman, and that’s good because your business is women. You are a mugger.

The feathers in the one pillow on the bed were duck down. The feather found, therefore, had not come from the pillow. It was found stuck to a smear of blood, so chances were it was left by the killer and not left by someone who’d been in the room previous to the killer. If the killer, therefore, had a pigeon feather stuck to his clothes, chances were he was a pigeon fancier. All the cops had to do was track down every pigeon fancier in the city. That job was for the birds.

Glasgow.

Any minute now a hooded man will come barreling out of nowhere and kill me. So that sucks. I

sauntering

These women never cut the umbilical cord. We get raised by one woman, and then when we're ripe, we get turned over to another woman.

It almost feels like watching aliens pretend to be human. Sometimes

little wrapped package,

As a matter of fact, if either of the two men were Buckingham or Ovid or Byron, they might have respectively realized that “love is the salt of life,” and “the perpetual source of fears and anxieties,” and “a capricious power”—but they weren’t poets, they

been

lighted

newspapers over his face.

The majority of the businesses around here seem to advertise that they buy gold, have guns for sale or both. And the locals I’ve happened across seem like the types that traded all of their gold for guns some time ago.

Words pop into my head: Fine Corinthian leather. For some reason, one part of my brain finds it highly amusing to think such mundane things in stressful moments. The rest of my brain, however, wants that part to die in a fire. As

stood

tea-monade

purse, was steady.

why was Weeks virtually

It’s juicy as hell in here, and it smells like liquid ass.

It’s like having a dimmer switch for reality.

Do you ever stop and enjoy anything the world has to offer?” he says. “Or are you too busy living up in your head to appreciate what’s going on around you?

Don’t look directly into it,” Glenn says. Immediately, I look directly into it.

In fact, generally speaking, I find that the longer you spend gazing into a mirror, the harder it becomes to respect yourself. Maybe that’s just me.

It’s like I always say: Perverts. Can’t live with ‘em. Could pretty easily live without ‘em.

Glenn reads some book about war. For real. I can almost remember the title, but wait, that’s right. I died of boredom before I could finish reading the cover.

It’s weird how as soon as you try to not be all keyed up for something, it becomes impossible. Your heart starts beating like a techno song and progresses into speed metal. Your thoughts race in tangled circles, coiling back on themselves, trying to fathom paradoxes within paradoxes. You can’t sit still. At all.

Relax,” Glenn calls from the other room. “I can’t,” I say. He may as well tell someone that just got stabbed to “Quit bleeding!

I presume other people find some form of comfort in being in a room full of strangers, being waited on and all of that. I guess it’s like a social activity for them. When I’m in a room full of random people, though, I’m looking for exits.

Hope for the best, prepare for the anal leakage.

Alone is alone, I guess, whether you’re surrounded by everyone or no one.

Maybe it was a waste of time, or maybe it was a final real meal with his boys. Like being on death row. Greasy burgers and fries washed down with Coke -- a fitting end, perhaps, to a life where he never really tried.

would

What if I’m just a sick animal? A creature shuffled into existence here by the random whims of evolution. Nothing more. An existence totally without inherent meaning, totally without purpose. What

that was April

not even a real connection with someone in a way. It’s emptiness. That’s our role in humanity. Pumping out sperm. You’re always alone no matter what you do, I think.

I’m getting so I miss my morning coffee and corpse.

What was the name of the band?” Carella said. “I don’t think it had a name. It was a pickup band.” “It had a leader, didn’t it?” “Well, he wasn’t exactly a leader. Not the type anybody would want to be taken to, if you follow me.

had taken her for his bride. She had good legs, very white, and a good body, and her name was May.

I feel like I should be able to float away from this. I should be able to drift off to some other plane because this one is too painful for me to exist in. Because no one should have to feel this way. I know other people must, but I think they can just forget it or something. It always sticks with me, though. It marks me up good.

Trying to figure out how a girl feels is like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube in the dark.

themselves

In my time on my own, I’ve realized that I have no interest in reality. I don’t really want to be part of it.

I look out at the room, but I can still feel her eyes on me, on the colorful candy shells in my mitt. This is how it always goes, right? A guy gets his manhood questioned for his candy selections, and then the naysayers get their hands out for a little piece of this tasty rainbow action two seconds later. Unbelievable. "Let me guess," I say. You want some." "Well, I could try a few," she says.

It

twice

well

lot of money over

Greasy burgers and fries washed down with Coke -- a fitting end, perhaps, to a life where he never really tried. Never tried to accomplish anything great, anything meaningful to even him, let alone anyone else. It was a fast food life, lived for convenience, lived without regard for much beyond finding comfort, shoving empty calories into his face to try to feel better about the emptiness all around. And

It was a simpler time. There were less apocalypses going on.

They were running out of suspects and into dead ends. They were running into airtight alibis and out of patience. They were running up one-way alleys and phone bills. They were running down a killer who did not yet exist. They were running around in circles.

Il lui arrivait souvent de regarder les vieilles dames qui traversaient d'un pas traînant les rues de la ville là ou l'autobus menaçait et savait qu'à l'intérieur de ces corps ratatinés souriaient des visages resplendissants d'adolescentes.

I don’t think most people want friends. They just want someone to listen when they talk. They don’t want a connection, they want an audience.

Maybe life isn't some grand narrative with a spectacular ending like you might want. It's a series of moments. They might seem too random to add up to mean something huge, but they each mean the world on their own.

It feels like the world is all one way streets that run away from you.

juicy as hell in here, and it smells like liquid ass.

pretty frequently regarding this matter, as in: What the eff? Mardy

smell of pretty much any alcoholic beverage reminds me of Allie. When we first started hanging out, we drank a lot. A lot. It was more like

flash through my head. When I remember that fog it makes me feel sad in a way that doesn’t really make sense. Like I’ve lost something. I don’t remember things going black this time, which bothers me. I know the seizures are happening more frequently. Maybe they are coming on quicker, too.

them perhaps half an hour to finish all they have to do. Alan gets behind the wheel and honks the horn. In the stillness of the night, it sounds like