The Sins of the Fathers (Matthew Scudder, #1)

by Lawrence Block

Cain said he wasn’t Abel’s keeper. Are those the only choices, keeper or killer?

Man is an imperfect creature. Sometimes it seems to me that religion has no higher function than to sharpen his awareness of the extent of his imperfection.

Something I learned long ago. It is not necessary to know what a person is afraid of. It is enough to know the person is afraid.

It looked to be a waste of time, but everything was a waste of time, one way or another, and evidently something in me demanded that I waste my time in this particular fashion.

“Everybody has mean little places inside himself. It’s the ones who aren’t aware of them who fly off the handle. You were able to see what was happening. That made you capable of keeping a lid on it.”

I wondered whether it was worse for men to do the wrong things for the right reason or the right things for the wrong reason. It wasn’t the first time I wondered, or the last.