The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder Quotes

“Well, you got me there, I could have said. You’re right, I broke the rules, I didn’t play fair. And you know what? Fuck you.”
― Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

“The world’s a bastard. Life just happens to people.”
― Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

“I’ve heard it said that everybody stops smoking, that the trick is to be alive when it happens.”
― Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

“That’s not fair! That’s a cry that rings out over the years on every school playground, because if there’s one thing every child seems to be born knowing, it’s that life is supposed to be fair. And, if there’s one lesson he learns sooner or later, it’s that it’s not.”
― Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

“They are properly described as works of fiction, with the understanding that fiction does not imply lack of truth so much as a willingness to refashion factuality in the service of drama, and perhaps in search of a higher truth.”
― Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

“And this almost tautological business of having done one’s best can’t be reserved exclusively for parents.”
― Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

“myself was increasingly early to bed and early to rise, though I can’t say the effects were as the adage promised.”
― Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

“Matthew Scudder The Novels #1 The Sins of the Fathers #2 Time to Murder and Create #3 In the Midst of Death #4 A Stab in the Dark #5 Eight Million Ways to Die #6 When the Sacred Ginmill Closes #7 Out on the Cutting Edge #8 A Ticket to the Boneyard #9 A Dance at the Slaughterhouse #10 A Walk Among the Tombstones #11 The Devil Knows You’re Dead #12 A Long Line of Dead Men #13 Even the Wicked #14 Everybody Dies #15 Hope to Die #16 All the Flowers are Dying #17 A Drop of the Hard Stuff #18 The Night and the Music (Collected Short Stories) #19 A Time to Scatter Stones (A Novella)”
― Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

“You can take the girl out of St. Athanasius, etc. —Who was he, do you happen to know? Not Herr Bratwurst, Saint Whatchamacallit. —Athanasius. No idea. So yes, I’m reasonably certain she had an affair, although I don’t think it was the kind that would put Antony and Cleopatra in the shade. But whatever”
― Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

“Or we skip all that and just show him getting out a taxi in front of the Hotel Northwestern.”
― Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

“he was sort of a yutz, and he would have married her, because that went along with being the kind of yutz he was, but thank God she said something to her Aunt Vicki, and Vicki had a cousin who knew somebody,”
― Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

“the gun that had done me the kindness of jamming or misfiring, had skidded halfway across the room, and Vince bent over and reached for it, than thought better of it and used his foot instead.”
― Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

“First the man takes a drink, as one hears it said, and then the drink takes a drink. And even if that’s where it stops, before the third step of and then the drink takes the man,”
― Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder