Jackson Burnett, The Past Never Ends

"I came to the state twenty years ago from the South, the gothic South. I’ve heard it called that, haven’t you, Mister Morgan? ‘Thought I was gettin’ away from all that. You know, the Tennessee Williams’ decadence, the Huey Long corruption, the brewin’ and simmerin’ violence. I actually found that I kind of missed it. Then, I found out it was all here, too, but without the charm."

"Is any life so isolated that it lives only in the past and not in the present and future, too?"

"She had learned to live light because life itself could be heavy enough."

"The prairie skies can always make you see more than what you believe."

"A thousand years from now nobody is going to know that you or I ever lived. The cynic is right, but lazy. He says ‘You live, you die and nothing you do will ever make a difference.’ But as long as I live, I’m going to be like Beethoven and shake my fist at fate and try to do something for those who live here now and who knows how far into the future that will go. If I accomplish nothing more than making my arm sore, at least I will be satisfied that I have lived."

"He recognized it and knew it. In others—clients, witnesses, or sometimes adversaries, he had seen or heard it: A gesture, a phrase, or a tone which exposed unintended truth in the beat of a second."