Michael Connelly > Quotes

“There is nothing you can do about the past except keep it there.”
― Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict

“What is important is not what you hear said, it's what you observe.”
― Michael Connelly, Trunk Music

“You know what I did after I wrote my first novel? I shut up and wrote twenty-three more."

("The Castle")”
― Michael Connelly

“I view people two ways. They're either eye-for-an-eye people or they are turn-the-cheek people.”
― Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer

“In the long run, all wrongs are righted, every minus is equalized with a plus, the columns are totaled and the totals are found correct. But that's in the long run. We must live in the short run and matters are often unjust there. The compensating for us of the universe makes all the accounts come out even, but they grind down the good as well as the wicked in the process.”
― Michael Connelly, The Poet

“There is no client as scary as an innocent man."

J. Michael Haller, Criminal Defense Attorney, Los Angeles, 1962.”
― Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer

“I've learned over the years that sometimes if you ask the same question more than once you get different responses.”
― Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict

“Everybody counts or nobody counts”
― Michael Connelly

“...it is how a person goes about quenching his desires or living with them unrequited that the readers get a glimpse of his true character.”
― Michael Connelly

“Don't go growing a conscience on me," I said. "I've been down that road. It doesn't lead you to anything good.”
― Michael Connelly, The Fifth Witness

“You know you're going to get burned from time to time. It's just part of the game. So when it happens you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and forget about it because they're about to snap the ball again.”
― Michael Connelly, The Fifth Witness

“She refused to accept the simple truism that the better you were, the bigger threat you were to those at the top....”
― Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer

“There were a billion lights out there on the horizon and I knew that all of them put together weren't enough to light the darkness in the hearts of some men.”
― Michael Connelly, The Scarecrow

“There is nothing like the start of a season, before all the one-run losses, pitching breakdowns and missed opportunities. Before reality sets in.”
― Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer

“There was still chicken on the bone but sometimes you just have to push the plate away.”
― Michael Connelly, The Fifth Witness

“What is jealousy but a reflection of your own failures?”
― Michael Connelly, The Last Coyote

“Аз вярвам в теорията за единствения куршум.
Можеш да се влюбваш и любиш много пъти,
но има само един куршум, на който е гравирано името ти.
И ако извадиш късмета да те прострелят с този куршум,
раната никога не заздравява."

Майкъл Конъли - "Законът на Бош”
― Michael Connelly

“You can't patch a wounded soul with a Band-Aid.”
― Michael Connelly, The Black Echo

“Well, did he do it?"

She always asked the irrelevant question. It didn't matter in terms of the strategy of the case whether the defendant "did it" or not. What mattered was the evidence against him -- the proof -- and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of reasonable doubt.”
― Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer

“You know what my father said about innocent clients? ... He said the scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you fuck up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life ... He said there is no in-between with an innocent client. No negotiation, no plea bargain, no middle ground. There's only one verdict. You have to put an NG up on the scoreboard. There's no other verdict but not guilty."

Levin nodded thoughtfully.

"The bottom line was my old man was a damn good lawyer and he didn't like having innocent clients," I said. "I'm not sure I do, either.”
― Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer

“He's dead: Internal bleeding. When they opened him up they found a toothbrush shiv lodged in the anal cavity. It was never determinded whether he'd put it up there for safe keeping himself or somebody else did it for him, but it was a good lesson for the rest of the inmates. They even put up a sign. "Never put sharp objects up your ass.”
― Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict

“There is no end of things in the heart. ...she understood it to mean that if you took something to heart, really brought it inside those red velvet folds, then it would always be there for you. No matter what happened, it would be there waiting. She said this could mean a person, a place, a dream. A mission. Anything sacred. She told me that it is all connected in those secret folds. Always. It is all part of the same and will always be there, carrying the same beat as your heart.”
― Michael Connelly, Lost Light

“Los Angeles was the kind of place where everybody was from somewhere else and nobody really droppped anchor. It was a transient place. People drawn by the dream, people running from the nightmare. Twelve million people and all of them ready to make a break for it if necessary. Figuratively, literally, metaphorically -- any way you want to look at it -- everbody in L.A. keeps a bag packed. Just in case.”
― Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict

“Hidden Highlands was maybe a little richer but not that different from many of the other small, wealthy and scared enclaves nestled in the hills and valleys around Los Angeles. Walls and gates, guardhouses and private security forces were the secret ingredients of the so-called melting pot of southern California.”
― Michael Connelly, Trunk Music

“Bosch had never liked Las Vegas, though he came often on cases. It shared a kinship with Los Angeles; both were places desperate people ran to. Often, when they ran from Los Angeles, they came here. It was the only place left.”
― Michael Connelly, Trunk Music

“The Strip was still lit by a million neon lights, though the crowds on the sidewalk had greatly decreased by this hour. Still, Bosch was awed by the spectacle of light. In every imaginable color and configuration, it was a megawatt funnel of enticement to greed that burned twenty-four hours a day. Bosch felt the same attraction that all the other grinders felt tug at them. Las Vegas was like one of the hookers on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Even happily married men at least glanced their way, if only for a second, just to get an idea what was out there, maybe give them something to think about. Las Vegas was like that. There was a visceral attraction here. The bold promise of money and sex. But the first was a broken promise, a mirage, and the second was fraught with danger, expense, physical and mental risk. It was where the real gambling took place in this town.”
― Michael Connelly, Trunk Music

“The gravel road widened into a large turnaround where three similar looking and designed brothels sat waiting for customers. They were called Sheila's Front Porch, Tawny's High Five Ranch and Miss Delilah's House of Holies.

"Nice," Rachel said as we surveyed the scene. "why are these places always named after women -- as if women actually own them?"

"You got me. I guess Mister Dave's House of Holies wouldn't go over so well with the guys."

Rachel smiled.

"You're right. I guess it's a shrewd move. Name a place of female degradation and slavery after a female and it doesn't sound so bad, does it? It's packaging.”
― Michael Connelly, The Narrows

“You're a sleazy defense lawyer with two ex-wifes and an eight-year-old daughter and we all love you.”
― Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer

“The setting sun burned the sky pink and orange in the same bright hues as surfers' bathing suits. It was beautiful deception, Bosch thought, as he drove north on the Hollywood Freeway to home. Sunsets did that here. Made you forget it was the smog that made their colors so brilliant, that behind every pretty picture there could be an ugly story.”
― Michael Connelly, The Black Echo

“The bag was a hybrid I had picked up at a store called Suitcase City while I was plotting my comeback. [...] It had a logo on it -- a mountain ridgeline with the words "Suitcase City" printed across it like the Hollywood sign. Above it, skylights swept the horizon, completing the dream image of desire and hope. I think that logo was the real reason I liked the bag. Because I knew Suitcase City wasn't a store. It was a place. It was Los Angeles.”
― Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict

“There was polite laughter in the courtroom. Bosch noticed that the attorneys -- prosecution and defense -- dutifully joined in, a couple of them overdoing it. It had been his experience that while in open court a judge could not possibly tell a joke that the lawyers did not laugh at.”
― Michael Connelly, A Darkness More Than Night

“Money. The ultimate motivation. The ultimate way of keeping score.”
― Michael Connelly, Chasing the Dime