The Man from the Train Quotes

“What happens in many of these cases is that, in the absence of evidence, the crime is pinned on a person of low social standing who is known to be in the vicinity of the crime. We have seen this repeatedly.”
― Bill James, The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery

“And then you come to the 1910 to 1912 era, and . . . Jesus H. Christ, what is happening here? Axe murders start appearing like dandelions. Murdering your neighbors with an axe became the nation’s fourth-largest sport.”
― Bill James, The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery

“He was who he was; it was how he thought about himself. He was the man with the secret that nobody could ever get to. You guys look at me and you see nothing- this is how he thought; you see a small and dirty man who doesn't amount to anything, but I know that I can do things and I have done things that you cannot imagine. I am the very Monster of whom you live in terror- and you have no idea that it is Me.”
― Bill James, The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery

“From Hurley, Virginia, to Beckley, West Virginia, is eighty-two miles, a little bit less as the crow flies, but you can’t get there as the crow flies unless you are a crow.”
― Bill James, The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery

“This book is almost entirely about people who lived in small towns a hundred years ago. As much about how they died as about how they lived. But the flash of death illuminated the lifes the victims have lived.”
― Bill James, The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery

“The period from 1910 to 1912 was the era of the axe murderer. It is not a silly argument to say that this era came about because of The Man from the Train, that he was the man who spread the idea across the country. He was the Typhoid Mary of the Axe Murder Epidemic.”
― Bill James, The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery

“Skepticism in favor of a presumption of guilt when the facts do not support a finding of guilt is irrational skepticism. And irrational skepticism is the smoke screen behind which these murders have been hidden for a hundred years.”
― Bill James, The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery

“Could you break into a stranger’s house with an axe, and beat the entire family to death, and then go on about your life the same as before? No, of course you could not, and I could not. I would be terrified. I would shake in my boots; I would pee in my pants. I couldn’t do it; not that I would want to, but I could not. It required a self-possession, a clarity of purpose, and a suppression of fear that is beyond anything normal. Is it accurate to say that the man who could do this was a coward?”
― Bill James, The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery