James Crumley > Quotes

“When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.”
― James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss

“Lady bartenders live a tougher life than anybody knows. -- Dancing Bear”
― James Crumley

“An old drinking buddy of mine had come home from a two-week binge with a rose tattooed on his arm. Around the blossom was written Fuck ‘em all/and sleep till noon. His wife made him have it surgically removed, but she hated the scar even more. Every time he touched it, he grinned. Some years later she tried to remove the grin with a wine bottle, but she only knocked out a couple of teeth, which made the grin even more like a sneer. The part that I don’t understand, though, is that they are still married. He is still grinning and she is still hating it.”
― James Crumley

“...the sun rose each morning to stare into my face with the blank but touching gaze of a lovely retarded child.”
― James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss

“Maybe I will go to Paris.
Who knows? But I’ll sure as hell never
Go back to Texas again”
― James Crumley

“I have learned some things. Modern life is warfare without end: take no prisoners, leave no wounded, eat the dead--that's environmentally sound.”
― James Crumley, Dancing Bear