World of Trouble Quotes

“The first time we met he shot me in the head with an electric staple gun, but our relationship has evolved in the subsequent months.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“I am a question mark aimed at an answer.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“Almost always, things are exactly as they appear. People are continually looking at the painful or boring parts of life with the half-hidden expectation that there is more going on beneath the surface, some deeper meaning that will eventually be unveiled; we're waiting for the saving grace, the shocking reveal. But almost always things just are what they are, almost always there's no glittering one hidden under the dirt.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“Solving a murder is not about serving the victim, because the victim is, after all, dead. Solving a murder serves society by restoring the moral order that has been upset by the gunshot or knife strike or poisoning, and it serves to preserve that moral order by warning others that certain acts cannot be committed with impunity.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“What is about to happen is not the reclaiming of Earth by a triumphant Mother Nature, a karmic repudiation of humanity's arrogant ill stewardship. Nothing we ever did mattered one way or another. This event has always been in the cards for man's planet, for the whole scope of our history, coming regardless of what we did or didn't do.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“Vengeance is the cheapest of motivations, it’s a tin star on a shabby coat. I want answers is all that I want.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“It’s not just a person’s present that dies when they die, when they are murdered or drowned or a giant rock falls on their head. It’s the past, too, all the memories that belonged only to them, the things they thought and never said. And all those possible futures, all the ways that life might have turned out. Past and future and present all burn up together like a bundle of sticks. Most”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“Surviving challenging circumstances, I have found, is very often a matter of keeping things in perspective.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“I can't solve the crime unless I know everything and the world can't end with the crime unsolved, that's all there is to it, so I tighten my grip on her shoulders and demand that she remember.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“Almost always, things are exactly as they appear. People are continually looking at the painful or boring parts of life with the half-hidden expectation that there is more going on beneath the surface, some deeper meaning that will eventually be unveiled; we’re waiting for the saving grace, the shocking reveal. But almost always things just are what they are, almost always there’s no glittering ore hidden under the dirt. A”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“Nobody is the kind of person they used to be.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“I have to wonder if it isn’t more accurate to say that life is a series of trap doors, and you fall through them, one by one, tumbling down and down and down, one hole to the next.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“He laughs like, what can you do? Laughs and spreads his palms as if revealing himself, Cortez the thief, as he is and always was, the person I always knew was there but never wanted to see. I am surprised, but why am I surprised? I decided at some point that he had made my road his road, given over to me the last two months of preimpact existence, because I was on my cockamamie hero's quest and required an able and agile sidekick—I reached that conclusion without thinking about it much and put the question aside. But everybody does everything for a reason. That's lesson number one of police work; it's lesson number one of life.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“I am a question mark pointed at a secret, Cortez is a tool aimed at the stubborn places of the world.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“You never really think of Amish people as being people, they’re this weird otherworldly category and you lump them all together in your mind, like penguins.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“Because of course a pandemic would be an absolute calamity, some deadly virus stalking the land, and you would huddle up with your family and shut out the world until it ended, but then it would—it would have an ending. A pandemic runs its course and then the world recovers.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“I hold Ruthie's hand and she holds my hand, we sit like that, giving each other strength, like strangers on a crashing plane.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“What is about to happen is not the reclaiming of Earth by a triumphant Mother Nature, a karmic repudiation of humanity’s arrogant ill stewardship.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“we clasp hands and look at each other as the sky begins to glow,”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“almost always things just are what they are, almost always there’s no glittering ore hidden under the dirt.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“But everybody does everything for a reason. That’s lesson number one of police work; it’s lesson number one of life.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“Sandy leans forward and kisses me, and I kiss her back, pressing myself against her, my excitement about the investigation rolling over, accelerating, transforming into that other big feeling, that exhilarating and terrifying feeling—not love, but the thing that feels like love—bodies rising to each other, nerve endings opening up and seeking each other—a feeling I know, even as it floods into my veins and my joints, that I will probably never feel again. Last time, for this.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“And the fact is that what Cortez said actually has the ring of truth. Not that kind of girl. But neither was Peter Zell that kind of guy. Nobody is the kind of person they used to be.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“I’m lying here sputtering and wondering in what year of my theoretical future police career I would develop the skill to occasionally be the one who surprises the guy, instead of being the guy who gets surprised.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“All we’ve been drinking is coffee, working our way through one massive sack of arabica beans. Cortez rigged up a manual pencil sharpener into a grinder; we measure out cups from the barrels of spring water we took with us from Massachusetts; we boil up the coffee in an old carafe over a camp stove, strain it through a mesh spatula into a hot/cold thermos. It takes forever. It tastes terrible.
“Can you make coffee?” I ask Cortez. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “Great idea.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“She said this beautiful thing to me about how life was a house that God had built for you, and he knew what was in each room but you didn't - and behind every door there was a discovery to be made, and some rooms were full of treasure and some with trash but all rooms were of God's design - and at this point, this many years later, I have to wonder if it isn't more accurate to say that life is a series of trap doors, and you fall through them, one by one, tumbling down and down and down, one hole to the next.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“Someone?” he said, even though he knew what I meant, but I pressed on, fulfilling my obligations, trying to get everything down according to procedure. “Someone,” I said. “A priest. To do last rites.” He laughed, with effort, a low, gasping chuckle. “Henry,” he said. “Dig a hole.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“Almost always, things are exactly as they appear. People are continually looking at the painful or boring parts of life with the half-hidden expectation that there is more going on beneath the surface, some deeper meaning that will eventually be unveiled; we’re waiting for the saving grace, the shocking reveal. But almost always things just are what they are, almost always there’s no glittering ore hidden under the dirt.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“Acceptance of loss is not a destination—it’s a journey.”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“And then I roll out, just after midnight on October 3, with that one particular memory, of me and Naomi at Mr. Chow’s, threaded through my ribs like a red ribbon. It”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble