The Way Some People Die Quotes

“The tea tasted like a clear dark dripping from the past. My grandmother came back with it, in crisp black funeral silks,”
― Ross Macdonald, The Way Some People Die

“It was midnight when I parked my car under Union Square. A wet wind blew across the almost deserted square, blowing fogged breath from the sea on the dark pavements. Flashing neons on all four sides repudiated the night.”
― Ross MacDonald, The Way Some People Die

“On the other side of the tracks - the tracks were there - the business section wore its old Spanish facades like icing on a stale cake.”
― Ross Macdonald, The Way Some People Die

“It was a small room, and it was as crowded with coffee- and end-tables, chairs and hassocks and bookcases, as a second-hand furniture store. The horizontal surfaces were littered with gewgaws, shells and framed photographs, vases and pincushions and doilies. If the lady had come down in the world, she'd brought a lot down with her. My sensation of stepping into the past was getting too strong for comfort. The half-armed chair closed on me like a hand.”
― Ross Macdonald, The Way Some People Die

“Tourists and transients lived in hotels and motels along the waterfront. Behind them a belt of slums lay ten blocks deep, where the darker half of the population lived and died. On the other side of the tracks - the tracks were there - the business section wore its old Spanish facades like icing on a stale cake.”
― Ross Macdonald, The Way Some People Die

“He was recovering his style, or whatever it was that kept him upright and made him interesting to women. On the shooting level he was a bum, as useless as a cat in a dogfight. But he had his own feline dignity, even with his hands up.”
― Ross Macdonald, The Way Some People Die

“When I stepped out of my car the night shot up like a tree and branched wide into blossoming masses of stars. Under their far cold lights I felt weak and little. If a fruit fly lived for one day instead of two, it hardly seemed to matter. Except to another fruit fly.”
― Ross Macdonald, The Way Some People Die

“I’m just a floating question-mark, waiting for an answer to hook onto me.”
― Ross Macdonald, The Way Some People Die