James E. Burke Quotes

#1. ALL MEN HAVE a religion or totems of some kind. Even the atheist is committed to an enormous act of faith in his belief that the universe created itself and the subsequent creation of intelligent life was simply a biological accident.

James Lee Burke

#2. There is no higher form of artistic expression then film

James Lee Burke

#3. 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.

James Lee Burke

#4. Big as a horse turd floating in a milk shake.
Wyatt Dixson

James Lee Burke

#5. Night Comes to the Cumberland.

James Lee Burke

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

James Lee Burke

#7. I messed my pants, he said.

James Lee Burke

#8. We all end up in the same place. Some sonner than others.

James Lee Burke

#9. I would start with four fingers of Jack in a thick mug, with a sweating Budweiser back, and by midnight I would be alone at the end of the bar, armed, drunk, and hunched over my glass, morally and psychologically insane.

James Lee Burke

#10. I made her talk about her family, her home, her music, and her work, everything that defined who she was before Bobby Joe had touched her with his probing hands.

James Lee Burke

#11. Jesse James's next tattoo should be a warning label: Danger. Loving this man could break you.

Alafair Burke

#12. If there is any human tragedy, there is only one, and it occurs when we forget who we are and remain silent while a stranger takes up residence inside our skin.

James Lee Burke

#13. It's funny what can happen when you lay bare the heart and join the Earth's old dance through the heavens.

James Lee Burke

#14. Is there a design in the events of our lives? Or do things just happen, much like a junk yard falling down a staircase? If it's the latter, how do you deal with it?

James Lee Burke

#15. This is Louisiana, Dave. Guatemala North. Quit pretending it's the United States. Life will make a lot more sense, he said.

James Lee Burke

#16. The key to why things change is the key to everything.

James E. Burke

#17. We don't grow unless we take risks. Any successful company is riddled with failures.

James E. Burke

#18. Sometimes when that kind of evil comes into our lives, we can't explain it, so we blame it on God or ourselves. In both cases we're wrong. Maybe it's time you let yourself out of prison.

James Lee Burke

#19. Every third night a commitee holds a meeting in my head.

James Lee Burke

#20. Most criminals are stupid. They creep $500,000 homes in the Garden District, load up two dozen bottles of gin, whiskey, vermouth, and Collins mix in a $2,000 Irish linen tablecloth and later drink the booze and throw the tablecloth away.

James Lee Burke

#21. When you read a book, you hold another's mind in your hands.

James Burke

#22. The best moments in life are not the kind many historians record.

James Lee Burke

#23. How do you explain to yourself the casual manner in which you threw your life away?

James Lee Burke

#24. To misuse one's talent, to be cavalier about it, to set it aside because of fear or sloth is unpardonable.

James Lee Burke

#25. Jimmie would forever be the Renaissance humanist, bearing his faith and optimism like a white light inside a chalice.

James Lee Burke

#26. It's a great burden, being one of the good guys.

James Lee Burke

#27. Did you ever see a mob rush across town to do a good deed? Dave Robicheaux

James Lee Burke

#28. Somehow sleep allows us to see clearly those very things that are obscured by the light of day.

James Lee Burke

#29. The story of Ulysses and Agamemnon and Menelaus, of Jesus, of the Good Knight of Chaucer, lives in every one of us.

James Lee Burke

#30. Every drunkard has many moments of shame that live like carpet tacks in his memory,

James Lee Burke

#31. Write for the love of your art. Someplace down the road, the money, the fame, they'll come, but by that time you won't be thinking in terms of money or fame.

James Lee Burke

#32. Don't undo a brave and noble deed. Don't rob yourself of your own virtue.

James Lee Burke

#33. If you put somebody on a crack pipe and give them a 9 mm Baretta, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what's going to happen next.

James Lee Burke

#34. My experience with age it instills a degree of patience in some, leaves the virtuous spiritually unchanged, feeds the character defects in others, and brings little wisdom to any of us.

James Lee Burke