Optimistic Morning Quotes

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In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning
Carl Sandburg
After you put your feet on the floor in the morning, immediately say this phrase, “It’s going to be a great day.” As you say these seven words, try to feel optimistic and positive.
B.J. Fogg (Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything)
THERE IS NOTHING more pathetically optimistic than the morning erection. I am depressed, unemployed, unloved, basement-dwelling, and bereaved, but there it is, every morning like clockwork, rising up to greet the day, poking out of my fly cocksure and conspicuously useless. And every morning, I face the same choice: masturbate or urinate. It’s the one time of the day where I feel like I have options.
Jonathan Tropper (This is Where I Leave You)
beggars approached the task of trying to persuade perfect strangers to bear the burden of their maintenance with that optimistic vim which makes all the difference. It was one of those happy mornings.
P.G. Wodehouse (Something New)
The light is nostalgic about mornings past and optimistic about mornings to come.
Wallace Stegner (Crossing to Safety)
Leo," Amelia asked suspiciously, "what are you planning to do to her?" "Why do you always insist on asking questions when you know you won't like the answers?" "Because, being an optimist," she said tartly, "I always hope I'm wrong." - Amelia & Leo
Lisa Kleypas (Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4))
If you have more good days than bad, you might be an optimist. If you roll out of bed in the morning looking forward to the day, you might be an optimist. If you can't wait to crack open that book and delve into a world all your own, you might be ... me!
Jeffrey Michael
The next morning I told Mom I couldn't go to school again. She asked what was wrong. I told her, “The same thing that’s always wrong.” “You’re sick?” “I'm sad.” “About Dad?” “About everything.” She sat down on the bed next to me, even though I knew she was in a hurry. “What's everything?” I started counting on my fingers: “The meat and dairy products in our refrigerator, fistfights, car accidents, Larry–” “Who's Larry?” “The homeless guy in front of the Museum of Natural History who always says ‘I promise it’s for food’ after he asks for money.” She turned around and I zipped her dress while I kept counting. “How you don’t know who Larry is, even though you probably see him all the time, how Buckminster just sleeps and eats and goes to the bathroom and has no ‘raison d’etre’, the short ugly guy with no neck who takes tickets at the IMAX theater, how the sun is going to explode one day, how every birthday I always get at least one thing I already have, poor people who get fat because they eat junk food because it’s cheaper…” That was when I ran out of fingers, but my list was just getting started, and I wanted it to be long, because I knew she wouldn't leave while I was still going. “…domesticated animals, how I have a domesticated animal, nightmares, Microsoft Windows, old people who sit around all day because no one remembers to spend time with them and they’re embarrassed to ask people to spend time with them, secrets, dial phones, how Chinese waitresses smile even when there’s nothing funny or happy, and also how Chinese people own Mexican restaurants but Mexican people never own Chinese restaurants, mirrors, tape decks, my unpopularity in school, Grandma’s coupons, storage facilities, people who don’t know what the Internet is, bad handwriting, beautiful songs, how there won’t be humans in fifty years–” “Who said there won't be humans in fifty years?” I asked her, “Are you an optimist or a pessimist?” She looked at her watch and said, “I'm optimistic.” “Then I have some bed news for you, because humans are going to destroy each other as soon as it becomes easy enough to, which will be very soon.” “Why do beautiful songs make you sad?” “Because they aren't true.” “Never?” “Nothing is beautiful and true.
Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
Like all shopkeepers, they are deep-down optimists. They have to be, because every morning they unlock the doors to their stores, turn on the lights, prepare for the day, and wait for people to walk in and hand them money.
Robert Spector (The Mom & Pop Store: True Stories from the Heart of America)
As I write this, it is nine o’clock in the morning. In the two hours since I got out of bed I have showered in water heated by North Sea gas, shaved using an American razor running on electricity made from British coal, eaten a slice of bread made from French wheat, spread with New Zealand butter and Spanish marmalade, then brewed a cup of tea using leaves grown in Sri Lanka, dressed myself in clothes of Indian cotton and Australian wool, with shoes of Chinese leather and Malaysian rubber, and read a newspaper made from Finnish wood pulp and Chinese ink.
Matt Ridley (The Rational Optimist)
I strip myself emotionally when I confess need – that I would be lost without you, that I am not necessarily the independent person I have tried to appear, but am a far less admirable weakling with little clue of life’s course or meaning. When I cry and tell you things I trust you will keep for yourself, that would destroy me if others were to learn of them, when I give up the game of gazing seductively at parties and admit it’s you I care about, I am stripping myself of a carefully sculpted illusion of invulnerability. I become as defenseless and trusting as the person in the circus trick, strapped to a board into which another is throwing knives to within inches of my skin, knives I have myself freely given. I allow you to see me humiliated, unsure of myself, vacillating, drained of self-confidence, hating myself and hence unable to convince you [should I need to] to do otherwise. I am weak when I have shown you my panicked face at three in the morning, anxious before existence, free of the blustering, optimistic philosophies I had proclaimed over dinner. I learn to accept the enormous risk that though I am not the confident pin-up of everyday life, though you have at hand an exhaustive catalogue of my fears and phobias, you may nevertheless love me.
Alain de Botton (The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel)
It’s been found that if you wake up every morning and practice saying three things you are grateful for—they have to be new each day—by doing this for twenty-one days, even people who were testing as the low-level pessimist on average were now testing as low-level optimist.
Oprah Winfrey (The Wisdom of Sundays: Life-Changing Insights from Super Soul Conversations)
Imports are Christmas morning; exports are January’s MasterCard bill. P.J. O’ROURKE
Matt Ridley (The Rational Optimist (P.S.))
Dr. Maria said this morning that she remains optimistic,” Dad said. I liked Dr. Maria, and she didn’t bullshit you, so that felt good to hear.
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected. I believe it was your Robert Frost who said that. I once took a class on American poets. A bit too optimistic and sentimental for my tastes.
Joe Ide (Righteous (IQ #2))
I assume we'll make a stop in London?" Ainsley asked. "I can't imagine you'd run straight through to Paris tonight, would you? If I could find a room at a respectable hotel, I can sort through my things and decide what I truly need to take. Isabella thought the lot, but I think she is optimistic." Cameron unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "We'll stop in London," he said, his voice gruff. "Not in a hotel. In Hart's house; he keeps it ready. In the morning, we'll marry.
Jennifer Ashley (The Many Sins of Lord Cameron (MacKenzies & McBrides, #3))
Ah, God, what an ugly city Ilium is! 'Ah, God,' says Bokonon, 'what an ugly city every city is!' Sleet was falling through a motionless blanket of smog. It was early morning. I was riding in the Lincoln sedan of Dr. Asa Breed. I was vaguely ill, still a little drunk from the night before. Dr. Breed was driving. Tracks of a long-abandoned trolley system kept catching the wheels of his car. Breed was a pink old man, very prosperous, beautifully dressed. His manner was civilized, optimistic, capable. I, by contrast, felt bristly, diseased, cynical. I had spent the night with Sandra. My soul seemed as foul as smoke from burning cat fur.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Cat’s Cradle)
I know the others saw my behaviour as confident and optimistic, and perhaps it gave them hope. But what looked to them like optimism was really nothing of the sort. It was panic. It was terror. The urge that drove me to trek west was the same urge that drives a man to jump from the top of a burning building. I had always wondered how a person thinks in such a moment, perched on the ledge, cringing from the flames, waiting for the split second when one death makes more sense than another. How does the mind make such a choice? What is the logic that tells you the time has come to step into thin air? This morning I had my answer. I smiled are Carlitos, then turned away before he saw the anguish in my eyes.
Nando Parrado (Miracle in the Andes)
If you do the Maui Habit and feel that it won’t be a great day, I advise you to still say this phrase. I say it even on mornings when I feel exhausted or overwhelmed or anxious about the day ahead. In that moment, sitting on the edge of my bed, I try to feel optimistic. But if this feels phony, then I adjust the phrase and my intonation as I say, “It’s going to be a great day—somehow.
B.J. Fogg (Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything)
A rising sun died in America and the world on Nov. 22, 1963. Some say that we have never again seen such a rising sun in the sky as we did that morning. Even if it was cloudy or raining that day, the country and world were more innocent and optimistic at that moment than they have been since then. Some say that a piece of all of us – the hope that helps us get through another day - died that day. Others say the act just opened the eyes of many about what the U.S. government and other governments had done in our names for a long time.
Kevin James Shay (Death of the Rising Sun: A Search for Truth in the JFK Assassination)
His (my father's) general belief in life's well-being worked either way. 'Have you ever had it before? You have? It's not going to kill you, then. If you've had the same thing before, you'll be alright in the morning.' My mother couldn't have more profoundly disagreed with that. 'You're such an optimist, dear,' she often said with a sigh. 'You're a good deal of a pessimist, sweetheart.' 'I certainly am.' And yet, I was well aware as I stood between them, he the optimist was the one who was prepared for the worst, and she the pessimist was the daredevil.
Eudora Welty (On Writing (Modern Library))
Pragmatic, blithe, the eternal, cockeyed optimist, Chris sings when he works in the gardens. When he shaves in the mornings he hums some ballet tune, feeling no trepidations, no regrets, as if long, long ago he had been the man who danced in the shadows of the attic and had never, never let me see his face. Did he know all along that just as he had won over me in all other games it would be him in the end? Why hadn’t I known? Who had shut my eyes? It must have been Momma who told me once, “Marry a man with dark, dark eyes, Cathy. Dark eyes feel so terribly intense about everything.” What a laugh! As if blue eyes lacked some profound steadfastness; she should have known better.
V.C. Andrews (Petals on the Wind (Dollanganger, #2))
The economist Paul Romer distinguishes between complacent optimism, the feeling of a child waiting for presents on Christmas morning, and conditional optimism, the feeling of a child who wants a treehouse and realizes that if he gets some wood and nails and persuades other kids to help him, he can build one.108 We cannot be complacently optimistic about climate change, but we can be conditionally optimistic. We have some practicable ways to prevent the harms and we have the means to learn more. Problems are solvable. That does not mean that they will solve themselves, but it does mean that we can solve them if we sustain the benevolent forces of modernity that have allowed us to solve problems so far, including societal prosperity, wisely regulated markets, international governance, and investments in science and technology.
Steven Pinker (Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress)
Even though the wreckage had been described to her, and though she was still in pain, the sight horrified and amazed her, and there was something she noticed about it that particularly gave her the creeps. Over everything—up through the wreckage of the city, in gutters, along the riverbanks, tangled among tiles and tin roofing, climbing on charred tree trunks—was a blanket of fresh, vivid, lush, optimistic green; the verdancy rose even from the foundations of ruined houses. Weeds already hid the ashes, and wild flowers were in bloom among the city’s bones. The bomb had not only left the underground organs of plants intact; it had stimulated them. Everywhere were bluets and Spanish bayonets, goose-foot, morning glories and day lilies, the hairy-fruited bean, purslane and clotbur and sesame and panic grass and feverfew. Especially in a circle at the center, sickle senna grew in extraordinary regeneration, not only standing among the charred remnants of the same plant but pushing up in new places, among bricks and through cracks in the asphalt. It actually seemed as if a load of sickle-senna seed had been dropped along with the bomb.
The New Yorker (The 40s: The Story of a Decade (New Yorker: The Story of a Decade))
We can constrain our suffering, and we can face it psychologically. That makes us courageous. Then we can ameliorate it practically, because that is what we do when we care for ourselves and other people. There seems to be almost no limit to that. You can genuinely and competently come to care for yourself and your family. You can then extend that out into the broader community. Some people become unbelievably good at that. People who work in palliative care constitute a prime example. They work continually, caring for people who are suffering and dying, and they lose some of those people every day. But they manage to get out of bed every morning, go to work, and face all that pain, tragedy, and death. They make a difference under virtually impossible circumstances. It is for such reasons and because of such examples—watching people confront the existential catastrophe of life forthrightly and effectively—that I am more optimistic than pessimistic, and that I believe that optimism is, fundamentally, more reliable than pessimism. To come to such a conclusion, and then to find it unshakable, is a good example of how and why it may be necessary to encounter the darkness before you can see the light. It is easy to be optimistic and naive. It is easy for optimism to be undermined and demolished, however, if it is naive, and for cynicism to arise in its place. But the act of peering into the darkness as deeply as possible reveals a light that appears unquenchable, and that is a profound surprise, as well as a great relief.
Jordan B. Peterson (Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life)
so often I get optimistic and explain the best method of learning to write to students. I don’t believe any of them has ever tried it, but I will explain it to you now. After all, you may be the exception. When I read about this method, it was attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who invented and discovered so much. Certainly I did not invent it. But I did it, and it worked. That is more than can be said for most creative writing classes. Find a very short story by a writer you admire. Read it over and over until you understand everything in it. Then read it over a lot more. Here’s the key part. You must do this. Put it away where you cannot get at it. You will have to find a way to do it that works for you. Mail the story to a friend and ask him to keep it for you, or whatever. I left the story I had studied in my desk on Friday. Having no weekend access to the building in which I worked, I could not get to it until Monday morning. When you cannot see it again, write it yourself. You know who the characters are. You know what happens. You write it. Make it as good as you can. Compare your story to the original, when you have access to the original again. Is your version longer? Shorter? Why? Read both versions out loud. There will be places where you had trouble. Now you can see how the author handled those problems. If you want to learn to write fiction, and are among those rare people willing to work at it, you might want to use the little story you have just finished as one of your models. It’s about the right length.     P
Gene Wolfe (The Best of Gene Wolfe)
In the year after Chris died, a friend organized a trip for the kids and me to use the time-share at Disney World in Florida. I felt exceptionally lonely the night we arrived in our rental car, exhausted from our flight. Getting our suitcases out, I mentioned something along the lines of “I wish we had Dad here.” “Me, too,” said both of the kids. “But he’s still with us,” I told them, forcing myself to sound as optimistic as possible. “He’s always here.” It’s one thing to say that and another to feel it, and as we walked toward the building I didn’t feel that way at all. We went upstairs--our apartment was on the second floor--and went to the door. A tiny frog was sitting on the door handle. A frog, really? Talk about strange. Anyone who knows the history of the SEALs will realize they trace their history to World War II combat divers: “frogmen” specially trained to infiltrate and scout enemy beaches before invasions (among other duties). They’re very proud of that heritage, and they still occasionally refer to themselves as frogmen or frogs. SEALs often feature frogs in various tattoos and other art related to the brotherhood. As a matter of fact, Chris had a frog skeleton tattoo as a tribute to fallen SEALs. (The term frogman is thought to derive from the gear the combat divers wore, as well as their ability to work both on land and at sea.) But for some reason, I didn’t make the connection. I was just consumed by the weirdness--who finds a frog, even a tiny one, on a door handle? The kids gathered round. Call me squeamish, but I didn’t want to touch it. “Get it off, Bubba!” I said. “No way.” We hunted around and found a little tree branch on the grounds. I held it up to the doorknob, hoping it would hop on. It was reluctant at first, but finally it toddled over to the outside of the door jam. I left it to do whatever frogs do in the middle of the night. Inside the apartment, we got settled. I took out my cell phone and called my mom to say we’d arrived safely. “There was one strange thing,” I told her. “There was a frog on the door handle when we arrived.” “A…frog?” “Yes, it’s like a jungle down here, so hot and humid.” “A frog?” “Yeah.” “And you don’t think there’s anything interesting about that?” “Oh my God,” I said, suddenly realizing the connection. I know, I know: just a bizarre coincidence. Probably. I did sleep really well that night. The next morning I woke up before the kids and went into the living room. I could have sworn Chris was sitting on the couch waiting for me when I came out. I can’t keep seeing you everywhere. Maybe I’m crazy. I’m sorry. It’s too painful. I went and made myself a cup of coffee. I didn’t see him anymore that week.
Taya Kyle (American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal)
His gaze is slow, almost lazy as it meanders down my body, taking in every curve and corner of my body. The lace sundress which had seemed optimistic this morning suddenly feels like lingerie. I’m exposed.
Skye Warren (Force of Nature (Deserted Island, #1))
With the judges waiting anxiously nearby, the emperor struck up a conversation with the young teacher. When Bell told him that he had come to the fair hoping to show an invention, but would have to leave early in the morning, Don Pedro reacted with characteristic vigor. "Ah. He exclaimed. Then we must have a look at it now!" Taking Bell's arm in his own, he strolled toward the stairs. A long line of judges shuffling resignedly behind. After the group had crossed the long hall and climbed to the remote gallery, Bell led them to his table, around which, he had optimistically arranged a few chairs.
Candice Millard
she started taking her coffee and Bible with her to the back porch first thing in the mornings. She hoped the quiet time while the children still slept would give her the optimistic attitude she needed to tackle the day ahead. She was a little surprised at how easily she fell back into her old routine and amazed that with every faltering prayer and every moment she spent with the Word, she felt more peace and strength filling her.
Penny Richards (Wolf Creek Widow)
The Temple dedicated to the pantheon of gods, constructed by the magical Order of the Dawn over a thousand years ago, gleamed in the morning sunlight as Talis sauntered up the cobblestone street. Today he would study with Master Viridian, the leading wizard of the Order, for a chance at breaking his many year long failing streak, his inability at casting magic. Not that Talis was optimistic today. Especially since every time he’d tried in the past the results had proved disastrous.
John Forrester (Fire Mage (Blacklight Chronicles, #1))
When someone leaves camp and returns to the real world, they might question why the hell they spend every Monday morning walking down the street with their head buried in an iPhone, or why the hell they don't know a single thing about most of their coworkers.
Adam Smiley Poswolsky (Friendship in the Age of Loneliness: An Optimist's Guide to Connection)
life had never given him a reason not to. The young officer who stood in the lake house that morning was not just an adventurous, inquisitive man, but still an optimistic one, buoyed by a subconscious certainty that nothing bad would happen to him simply because nothing bad ever had.
Kat Rosenfield (No One Will Miss Her)
The apple-embroidered curtains lit up with morning light while songbirds mocked me with their optimistic greeting of the day.
Kimberly Lemming (That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon: Mead Mishaps 1)
I focused on staying positive every day, despite the money issues, health challenges, and constant reminders of the fire. It took every bit of focus I possessed. Six months after the fire, in the middle of the financial crisis, after one morning’s meditation, I wrote these words in my journal: I woke up this morning feeling like I’m being cradled in the arms of God. The energy of Spirit fills every part of me with blessing. The universe radiates perfection all around me. I am cradled in this field of blessing. It holds us always in love and joy. It nudges us daily to experience the light and beauty at the core of our being. I realize that I’m 100% spiritually successful. I enjoy a life of attunement to the universe. Daily, I celebrate oneness between my human consciousness and the greater consciousness of which I am a part. That’s the ultimate goal of every life, and I’ve lived it from the beginning. I choose to remind myself of this when I’m mesmerized by the things that haven’t materialized in my material world after so many years of visioning and hard work. As I tune in to the universe’s energy, I feel mine change in response. My thoughts become ordered and inspired. I start the day feeling optimistic, positive, enthusiastic, and creative. I embody prosperity. I attune daily to the energy of prosperity, as I have been doing for so many years. I know that material reality arranges itself around the signal that my consciousness produces. The truth is that I am abundant in every possible way, including money. I choose to maintain the joy of that vibration. I celebrate every manifestation of success in my world, no matter how small. I am grateful for my life just the way it is. I remain positive no matter what. I have the most important thing attainable in any life: Oneness with the universe! I attune to its music every morning in meditation. My mind, cells, and energy field come into resonance with its song. I then move into my day inspired and aligned. What a wonderful life. After writing those words, I decided to bask in the experience. I lay down in bed and visualized the experience turning from a delicious but intangible feeling into a hardwired neural fact in my body.
Dawson Church (Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy)
I WAS THE CATCHER for the Lake Luzerne Dodgers, a catcher with meager talent, a catcher in awe of Danny and Teddy. Danny was the first baseman and Teddy, the coach's son, was the left fielder. They were natural athletes: they could hit fastballs (a small miracle of hand-eye coordination that I never mastered), and they glided around the base paths with the grace of gazelles. They were, to a ten-year-old who was batting .111, the embodiment of beauty and summer and health. As I drifted to sleep at night, it was often with the image of Danny, horizontal and three feet off the ground, spearing a line drive, or of Teddy stretching a single into a double by slipping under the tag. In the early hours of a chilly, August, upstate New York morning, my father woke me. "Danny's got polio," he said. A week later Teddy got it too. My parents kept me indoors, away from other kids. Little League was suspended, the season unfinished. The next time I saw Danny, his throwing arm was withered and he couldn't move his right leg. I never saw Teddy again. He died in the early fall. But the next summer, the summer of 1954, there was the Salk vaccine. All the kids got shots. Little League resumed. The Lake Luzerne Dodgers lost the opening game to the Hadley Giants. The fear that kept us housebound melted away and the community resumed its social life. The epidemic was over. No one else I knew ever got polio.
Martin E.P. Seligman (The Optimistic Child)
Tomorrow. In the evening, we are all optimists. We think that when the light of a new day fills the sky above us, we will be able to change everything and begin afresh. But the next morning we wake up exhausted, tired before we start the day, and we leave it all to tomorrow again. And tomorrow is no longer twenty-four hours long. Tomorrow ends up being years and years of the same misery. I say to you: Tomorrow is now.
Selva Almada (The Wind That Lays Waste)
Every month she opened the alleys for a fete. Beer and beef, oysters, pints of ice cream, brandy, a cake riddled with cherries, pies of all sorts (pork, treacle, kidney), more beer. Each fete lasted the entire day, was serially every kind of gathering: in the morning, a party for children, then a ladies' lunch, then a tea, cocktails, then (as the day began to unravel) a light supper, a frolic, a soiree, a carousal, a blowout, a dance, and as people began to drink themselves sober, a conversation, an optimistic repentance, a vow for greatness, love.
Elizabeth McCracken (Bowlaway)
I don't differentiate between optimism and pessimism and am at quite a loss as to which of the two characterises me. When I awake each morning I thank the lord he did not take my soul during the night. If harm befalls me during the night, I thank him that it was no worse. So which am I, a pessimist or an optimist?
Emile Habiby
The Netscape offering changed that equation. Originally, Netscape planned to sell 3.5 million shares to the public at $14 each, a price that valued the company at about $500 million. Given that Netscape had posted only $17 million in sales—sales, not profits—during the previous six months, a half-billion-dollar valuation seemed highly optimistic. But not to investors looking for the next you-know-what. Netscape’s roadshows were mobbed; tech geeks who had never before bought a stock wanted to own the Navigator. One technology stock analyst said getting a session with Netscape’s management before the offering “was like getting a one-on-one with God.”3 With demand overwhelming, Netscape and Morgan Stanley, its underwriter, increased both the size and price of the offering, eventually selling 5 million shares at $28. Still, demand far outstripped supply; investors placed orders for 100 million shares, and Morgan Stanley had to decide which clients to favor with the limited number of shares it had available. “They don’t get any hotter than this,” the Journal reported the morning that Netscape opened for trading. With so much unmet demand, it was obvious that Netscape would begin trading far above the $28 offering. After struggling for hours to set a price, the Nasdaq’s market makers finally opened Netscape at $71 per share. It rose as high as $75 before settling back to end the day at $58.25. At that price the company was valued at more than $2 billion—one hundred times its trailing sales.
Alex Berenson (The Number)
The building of a healthy and optimistic psyche is every bit as necessary as the accomplishment of the physical objectives.
Michael Lombardi (The 5 AM Club: The Joy On The Other Side Of Morning (Morning Rituals, Productivity, Time Management, Spirituality))
file to my right is Brian Gant’s. I open the package, remove the thick sheaf of papers, and begin to read them carefully. Gaines was born in 1966. He was first convicted of aggravated rape at the age of nineteen. He served ten years and was paroled in February of 1995, just two months before Brian Gant’s mother-in-law was murdered. I find the section that contains Gaines’s parole records. They show that in February of 1995, he moved in with a woman named Clara Stoots. As I look at Clara Stoots’s address, an alarm bell goes off inside my head. I grab Brian Gant’s file and quickly locate a copy of the original police report of the murder. I’m looking for the mother-in-law’s address. When I find it, I begin to slowly shake my head. “No,” I say out loud. “No.” Clara Stoots’s address in April of 1995 was 136 Old Oak Road, Jonesborough, Tennessee. Shirley LaGuardia, Brian Gant’s mother-in-law, lived at 134 Old Oak Road, Jonesborough, Tennessee. At the time of her murder, Earl Gaines was living right next door. I dig back through Gaines’s file, curious about one thing. At the bottom of the stack are several booking photos of Gaines. I fold my arms on the desk in front of me, drop my head onto them, and start slamming my fist onto the desk in anger and frustration. As little Natalie first told the police—Gaines looked very much like Uncle Brian. Chapter Fifty-Nine Anita White walks unannounced into my office an hour and a half later wearing a smart, navy blue pant suit but looking a bit frazzled. She sits down across the desk from me without saying a word. I’ve called her a couple times since our conversation at the restaurant the morning they arrested Tommy Miller, but she hasn’t answered and hasn’t returned the calls. I wonder whether she’s looking for another apology from me. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you,” I say. “I’ve been out of the country.” “Vacation?” “I took a few personal days, but I worked the entire time I was gone.” “Really? On what?” “It started with the forensic analysis of Judge Green’s computer. Our analyst found out that someone had hacked into the judge’s computer not long before he was killed. He investigated, like all good TBI agents do, and found that the computer the hacker used was located in another country.” “And what country was that?” “Canada.” The look on her face is almost, but not quite, smug. There’s a gleam in her eye that tells me she knows something that I don’t. I can tell she’s dying to spit it out, but first she wants to enjoy her little game. “Canada’s a big country,” I say. “Yes, and Vancouver’s a big city.” The thought germinates in my mind and begins to grow quickly. Vancouver. Canada. Judge Green. Computer hacker. What do they have in common? It dawns on me suddenly, but I’m afraid to be too optimistic. What has she learned? How far has she taken it? “Talk to me,” I say. “When I saw the Vancouver address, I remembered the case against the pedophile that Judge Green threw out on a technicality. So I got online and looked it up. David Dillinger was the witness that the judge held in contempt that day. So I started doing my job. I checked with airlines at the Tri-Cities airport and found out that David Dillinger flew back here three days before Judge Green was murdered.
Scott Pratt (Injustice For All (Joe Dillard #3))