James Lee Burke

"The only thing an artist has to remember is to never lose faith in his vision."

"I had to feel sorry for Bubba's wife. In AA we called it denial. We take the asp to our breast and smile at the alarm we see in the eyes of others."

"And like most middle-aged people who hear the clock ticking in their lives, I had come to resent a waste or theft of my time that was greater than any theft of my goods or money."

"writing is like being in love. You never get better at it or learn more about it. The day you think you do is the day you lose it. Robert Frost called his work a lover's quarrel with the world. It's ongoing. It has neither a beginning nor an end. You don't have to worry about learning things. The fire of one's art burns all the impurities from the vessel that contains it."

"I looked at Lucas with the pang that a parent feels when he knows his child will be hurt and that it's no one's fault and that to try to preempt the rites of passage is an act of contempt for the child's courage."

"Some people say you pick up the Dirty Boogie where you left it off. Others say you pick it up where you would have been had you never gotten off it."

"Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity."

"And every good artist knows that the gift comes from somewhere else, and it's there for a reason, and that's to make the world a better place."