Tonya

“Love doesn’t die all at once, or in big steps, he thought.  It dies in tiny pieces, with daily decisions that nip off bits of it like the edges of a living branch until you’ve cut away to the heart of the trunk and then that, too, is gone and there’s nothing left.”
― Michaelbrent Collings, Strangers

“What the do-gooders label “de-sensitization” has a value as well as a price. Some of us can’t afford to be shocked by catastrophe. The surgeon, the burn ward nurse, emergency room attendants, paramedics, firefighters and cops, all those who scrape the still-screaming remains out of car wrecks, must cultivate their off-switch. Those who can’t learn to crack wise and discuss baseball over a corpse must find a gentler line of work. The rumor is that city cops get strange from what they see, their eyes flattening or sinking into sockets as deep and hollow as rat holes.”
― Sean Tejaratchi, Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective's Scrapbook

“so many books, so little time”
― Frank Zappa

“Cruelty is older than the Bible. Savagery beat its chest in the first human summer and has kept beating it every day since. The worst in men is commonplace. The best is a far rarer thing.”
― Dennis Lehane, The Drop