The Concrete Blonde Quotes

“If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents?”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“I'm relaxed, Belk. I call it Zen and the art of not giving a shit.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“Nobody in this world is who they say they are. Nobody. Not when they’re in their own room with the door shut and locked. And nobody knows anybody, no matter what they think... The best you can hope for is to know yourself. And sometimes when you do, when you see your true self, you have to turn away.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“That's justice," she said, nodding at the statue. "She doesn't hear you. She doesn't see you. She can't feel you and won't speak to you. Justice, Detective Bosch, is just a concrete blonde.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“The black heart does not beat alone.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you….”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“The citizens want their police to protect them, to keep the plague from their eyes, from their doors. But those same John Q.’s are the first to stare wide-eyed and point the finger of outrage when they see close up exactly what the job they’ve given the cops entails.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“just because they say it doesn’t make it true. After all, they’re lawyers.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“That’s extortion,” Cerrone said. “No, asshole, that’s justice.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“The house in Silverlake was dark, its windows as empty as a dead man’s eyes. It was an old California Craftsman with a full front porch and two dormer windows set on the long slope of the roof. But no light shone behind the glass, not even from above the doorway. Instead, the house cast a foreboding darkness about it that not even the glow from the streetlight could penetrate. A man could be standing there on the porch and Bosch knew he probably wouldn’t be able to see him. ‘You”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“of the hair was shoulder length and looked as if it had been bleached blonde. Bosch could”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“Bosch knew that hope was the lifeblood of the heart. Without it there was nothing, only darkness.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“Her unequivocal loyalty was beautiful,”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“has become strong over the past four years. He thinks he is invincible. It is a common trait in the disassembling phase of a psychopath. A state of confidence and invulnerability rises as, in actuality, the psychopath is making more and more mistakes. Disassembling. Becoming vulnerable to discovery.” “So because he has gotten away with his actions for four years, he thinks he is clear and is so untouchable”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“Ms. Chandler, we don’t need to point. We all know who we are. We also do not need inflammatory accent being placed on any words. Words are beautiful and ugly, all on their own. Let them stand for themselves.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“I do love you, Harry. I want to try to keep that alive because it’s one of the best things about my life. One of the best things I know. I know it will be hard. But that might make it all the better. Who knows?”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“turned the car around and it floated quietly down Lookout Mountain to Laurel Canyon. He took a right and drove to the canyon market, where he bought a six-pack of Anchor Steam. Then he took his beer and his questions back up the hill to Mulholland. He drove to Woodrow Wilson Drive and then down to his small house that stood on cantilevers and looked out across the Cahuenga Pass.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“She said the problem was he could not drop his guard completely and he knew this was true. Bosch had spent a lifetime alone, but not necessarily lonely.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“name many, many more.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“Stranglers. There was even a book written about them called Two of a Kind.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“The Big Sleep.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“precarious”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“and into Malibu Canyon to the Saddle Peak”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“Do we have a deal?”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“Through political opportunism and ineptitude, the city had allowed the department to languish for years as an understaffed and underequipped paramilitary organization. Infected with political bacteria itself, the department was top-heavy with managers while the ranks below were so thin that the dog soldiers on the street rarely had the time or inclination to step out of their protective machines, their cars, to meet the people they served. They only ventured out to deal with the dirtbags and, consequently, Bosch knew, it had created a police culture in which everybody not in blue was seen as a dirtbag and was treated as such. Everybody. You ended up with your André Galtons and your Rodney Kings. You ended up with a riot the dog soldiers couldn’t control. You ended up with a mural on a station house wall that was a damnable lie.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“in”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“Through political opportunism and ineptitude, the city had allowed the [police] department to languish for years as an understaffed and underequipped paramilitary organization. Infected with political bacteria itself, the department was top-heavy with managers while the ranks below were so thin that the dog soldiers on the street rarely had the time or inclination to step out of their protective machines, their cars, to meet the people they served. They only ventured out to deal with the dirtbags and consequently, Bosch knew, it had created a police culture in which everybody not in blue was seen as a dirtbag and was treated as such. Everybody.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“the best defense was a good lock or a mean dog. Or both.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde

“In the morning, Bosch sat on the rear deck of his house and watched the sun come up over the Cahuenga Pass. It burned away the morning fog and bathed the wildflowers on the hillside that had burned the winter before. He watched and smoked and drank coffee until the sound of traffic on the Hollywood Freeway became one uninterrupted hiss from the pass below.”
― Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde