Bad Signs Quotes

“I think he killed someone already. Capital offense an’ all that.”
Bailey tilted her head to one side. “That’s something that never made sense to me,” she said.
“What?”
“The death penalty. I mean, how does killing someone prove that killing people is wrong?”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“Sometimes it feels like life is there to teach you as many things about hurting as it can. That may be true. You can experience all the trouble you want, but that don’t mean you have to spend all your time thinking about it. Bad memories have long shadows. Spend the rest of your life inside of them and you never get warm.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“Hindsight, ever the cruelest and most astute adviser”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“He waved them out of the diner and closed up. He watched the pair of them head off down. Crown Street and he wondered what it would be like to be young and in love and have the whole world out there before you.
Bailey wasn’t thinking about the whole world at all. She was thinking about how much money they had and whether or not they could afford to sleep in a motel again.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“Lonely is a state of mind, not a place”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“Well, to hell with the nature of things, Clay Luckman. We’re just gonna have to change the nature of things, aren’t we? We’re gonna go to Eldorado and we’re gonna find out what nature has waitin’ for us there, and if we don’t like it then we’re gonna damned well change it or go lookin’ for it someplace else.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“Afraid of the present, the uncertain future, more afraid of the past, for the past he could not change and everything from this point forward could have been predetermined by circumstances beyond his control.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“Now I don’t’ know what trouble you got yourselves into, and I ain’t gonna ask, but whatever the hell it is I can tell you one thing for free. There’s never a trouble in life that’s solved by runnin’ away from it.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“For some reason Eldorado now seemed analogous to something – something better, a change for the good, a little place of hope. Maybe nothing would be different. Maybe Eldorado would be just one more kind of disappointment, but it was a purpose and it was a goal and it was a destination. It was a reason to keep moving.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“Well, those thoughts are just the variety you should never think. You just put up a sign someplace in your head and you never let them in, okay?” He said it with certainty, and he said it with some degree of conviction in his voice, but all three of them knew that it was not always how you wanted it to be. Sometimes those things just found a way right on in, and once they were in you were done.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“Everything he said seemed to be a judgment, an ultimatum, a handful of words from a sermon about fortitude, resilience, persistence, and unwillingness to quit. His slant was dark, pessimistic, but there was a sober level to it that Bailey found reassuring and practical. Emanuel Smith was a dreamer. He’d watched his dreams die, but that hadn’t changed his belief in the dreams. Like her father. He was dead, but that didn’t mean he’d never lived.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“Truth is that when all is said and done, the only thing we end up fearing is time.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“It was a while before he realized it was just moths beating gently at the windows and the screens. They kept on trying, as if within was always infinitely better than without. As if something different was always far greater than something the same.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“Hell, Bailey you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. You had a bad start, that’s all. We’ve both had a bad start, but things is gonna get better. There’s plenty of folks had it rougher than us, and they come out on top. They end up makin’ a bunch of money and straightenin’ everything out. All of it is about making the future better than what we got now.”
“Is that all it’s about? You really think that’s why we’re here?”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“You ever get the idea you were meant for greatness?”
Clay frowned. “Greatness?”
“Well, at least meant for somethin’. Somethin’ that ain’t nothin’. Seems to me most peoples’ lives are all chockfull of almosts and maybes. Things that should’ve been, you know?”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“Dead from emotional boredom, Maurice said, and Margot smiled and said nothing despite the fact that she knew Maurice was more than likely right. If a life has no purpose then it finds a way to stop living.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“It was definitely not something that could be understood within any acceptable context. But then, wasn’t it the case that all people believed they were rational? What they were doing in their minds and what they were doing with their hands were never the same thing.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“He smiled to himself. Dreamers, he thought. Pair of foolish dreamers. And he knew – somehow he just knew – that it had to get better from here.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“Even the most irrational mind has a rationale.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“He lay next to her, the warmth of her body, the smell of her, the sense of inseparability he always felt at such moments, and he recalled her words and wondered if she was right. It isn’t complicated. Always thinking, always wrestling with things, finding himself agitated and dissatisfied whatever he was doing. This was his flaw. Wherever he was, he always believed that what he was looking for was someplace else. Only at times such as this, jus the two of them, did he feel some sense of stability. She was his anchor. That’s why they worked.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“And the sound of her laughter made him feel somehow better, as if this ridiculous escapade had helped to jar loose the memories of the last few days. Tragedy was overcome by living life. Best way to deal with loss was to gain as much as possible every place else.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“He walked back to the rear door of the diner and lit his cigarette. He inhaled deeply, exhaled again and watched the smoke break up and disappear into nothing. Hell, he thought, and smiled nostalgically. That age he would have done the same damned thing himself.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“He felt things for which he did not know the name, and those things made him feel alive.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“She knew at times like this she was an anchor for him, a reminder that there was light and life in between the darkness and drying.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“He questioned the present, the past, and he realized that life had a way of preparing you for nothing at all.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“You got it all sorted out,” Digger said.
“Hell no, we ain’t never got it sorted out really. We just do the best we can.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“Imbuing life with some element of magic gave him hope. Hope that there was a reason for all things. Hope that the future was even now learning from the mistakes of the past.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“He cried for the future, and he cried because of the past.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“It was a bleak and desolate place, at least it felt that way, but perhaps for no other reason than the way familiarity bred selective blindness to those things of interest or importance.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs

“You have to try and believe that something good can happen any time at all, but you should never expect it too much. If you expect it, well, it won’t come. Like snow at Christmas.”
― R.J. Ellory, Bad Signs