Top 59 William Kent Krueger Quotes
#2. At the heart of most things that look bad is something that can be good and useful.
William Kent Krueger
#3. They're never far from us, you know." "Who?" I asked. "The dead. No more'n a breath. You let that last one go and you're with them again.
William Kent Krueger
#4. Haven't you seen that part of me as well? A man's many things. To isolate one part of him and judge him on that alone is to do him an injustice, don't you think?
William Kent Krueger
#6. I watched the storm as I might have watched the approach and passing of a fierce and beautiful animal. The
William Kent Krueger
#8. Although I'd had no trouble looking at the casket the day before, on that Saturday I did my best to keep my eyes averted. I stared instead at the stained-glass window behind the altar and imagined shooting the panes out with a slingshot.
William Kent Krueger
#10. That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.
William Kent Krueger
#11. I think that whether we acknowledge it or not, our opinions as authors always influence our work. How can they not?
William Kent Krueger
#12. I know from my studies and from my life is that there is no such thing as a true event. We know dates and times and locations and participants but accounts of what happened depend upon the perspective from which the event is viewed. Take
William Kent Krueger
#13. Few things were so sure and simple that they could be taken at face value.
William Kent Krueger
#15. Write because you love the work, not because of what might come from it. The journey is the purpose. Very Zen-like, I know, but honest to God it's the truth. And I have never had to deal with writer's block. Knock on wood.
William Kent Krueger
#16. If it was true, as Henry Meloux said, that he'd heard the Windigo call his name, he understood why now. Because it felt exactly as if his heart had just been torn out of him and devoured.
William Kent Krueger
#17. I generally played a little fast and loose with my resources but I figured hell, a man's reach should exceed his grasp, especially in a stupid board game.
William Kent Krueger
#18. Fishing, Danny boy, is purely a state of mind. Some men, when they are fishing, are after fish. Me, I'm after things you could never set a barbed hook in.
William Kent Krueger
#20. I was a sinner. I knew that without a doubt. But I was not alone. And the night was the accomplice of us all.
William Kent Krueger
#21. You stuff your own closet full of skeletons and you wonder what kind of bones everyone else has stuffed away.
William Kent Krueger
#22. What is happiness, Nathan? In my experience, it's only a moment's pause here and there on what is otherwise a long and difficult road. No one can be happy all the time. Better, I think, to wish for her wisdom, a virtue not so fickle.
William Kent Krueger
#23. He was no stranger to brutal death. Both as sheriff and as a cop on Chicago's south side, he'd seen his share of dying. Murder, accident, overdose - it happened in many ways, but the end was the same. Something sad and confusing left behind. Only the shape of life, only the empty outline.
William Kent Krueger
#24. Somebody tells you they drink because they're a failure, it ain't so. They're a failure because they drink. And they drink because it's so damn hard not to. But as long as they have a bottle that isn't empty, they never feel far from being happy.
("Bums")
William Kent Krueger
#25. My mother heated Campbell's tomato soup and made grilled cheese sandwiches with Velveeta and we ate dinner and afterward watched Have Gun - Will Travel.
William Kent Krueger
#26. I've come to understand that there's a good deal of value in the ritual accompanying death. It's hard to say good- bye and almost impossible to accomplish this alone and ritual is the railing we hold to, all of us together, that keeps us upright and connected until the worst is past.
William Kent Krueger
#28. Loss, once it's become a certainty, is like a rock you hold in your hand. It has weight and dimension and texture. It's solid and can be assessed and dealt with. You can use it to beat yourself or you can throw it away.
William Kent Krueger
#29. And what I know from my studies and from my life is that there is no such thing as a true event. We know dates and times and locations and participants but accounts of what happened depend upon the perspective from which the event is viewed.
William Kent Krueger
#31. I need some-" Cork thought a moment. "I was going to say advice, but the truth is, I need some guidance, Tom."
"We all do sometimes. It's not always easy to admit.
William Kent Krueger
#32. Straight is my path. Straight is my mind. Straight is my heart. Straight is my speech. Kind will I be to my brothers and sisters. Kind will I be to beast and bird.
William Kent Krueger
#33. Me, I was growing up scrambling for meaning and I was full of confusion and fear.
William Kent Krueger
#34. When you're a writer, you're always looking for conflict. It's conflict that drives great stories.
William Kent Krueger
#36. I'll tell you what I think defines greatness. The ability and willingness to perform in extraordinary ways.
William Kent Krueger
#39. Grief doesn't come in the moment of loss. It comes in the quiet of the aftermath.
William Kent Krueger
#40. Why would I be angry? Because they believe a thing does not make it so. There is no dignity in anger. But I am also not a kicked dog.
William Kent Krueger
#42. He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful graces of God.
William Kent Krueger
#43. The dead are never far from us. They're in our hearts and on our minds and in the end all that separates us from them is a single breath, one final puff of air.
William Kent Krueger
#45. leaning hard into the wind in order to complete the job expected of him. He was an Eagle
William Kent Krueger
#46. The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day.
William Kent Krueger
#48. I thought if you loved someone you were supposed to, like, forgive them. I thought that was what love was supposed to be all about."
Cork shook his head: "Easy to say, harder to do.
William Kent Krueger
#49. History. And from history came community. And community was something that spread out beyond itself, resulting in towns and nations. But it all began with family.
William Kent Krueger
#50. Cork, promise me something." "What?" "You won't do anything that'll get you hurt." "I'm not what you'd call a brave man," he assured her. She sighed, her breath making the hair at the back of his neck shiver. "Maybe not, but you're stubborn, and that's just as bad." After
William Kent Krueger
#51. There was no point in looking again. He [Cork] knew that. No point except to feed the coldness inside him. In a strange way, that was exactly what he wanted now. He wanted to feed himself to the cold until the cold had consumed him and he didn't care anymore.
William Kent Krueger
#52. Word is you heard the Windigo too."
I did. The difference is I'm ready for the son of a bitch."
Cork O'Connor
William Kent Krueger
#53. Sam's Place had never felt so empty. He suspected the emptiness was not in the old Quonset hut; it was in him. There was nothing in him now, nothing but the great emptiness of death, which he seemed to carry with him like a virus.
William Kent Krueger
#54. Heavenly Father, for the blessings of this food and these friends and our families, we thank you. In Jesus's name, amen.
William Kent Krueger
#55. God makes His presence known in many ways. In acts of love, in selfless acts of courage, in everyday human compassion.
William Kent Krueger
#56. In every human being, there are two wolves constantly fighting. One is fear, and the other is love. When Cork had asked which of the wolves won the battle, Meloux's answer had been: The one you feed. Always the one you feed.
William Kent Krueger
#57. If we put everything in God's hands, maybe we don't have to be afraid anymore.
William Kent Krueger
#58. And what is happiness, Nathan? In my experience, it's only a moment's pause here and there on what is otherwise a long and difficult road. No one can be happy all the time.
William Kent Krueger
#59. 'Ordinary Grace' freed me. I don't have to write only Cork O'Connor novels now. I'm liberated. I can write whatever I want to write.
William Kent Krueger
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