Dead Sleep Quotes

“Sooner or later. It had better be sooner. Later is like the horizon; it recedes as you approach.”
― Greg Iles, Dead Sleep

“My favorite book is The Mysterious Island. I order my books from a flimsy catalog the teacher hands out to every student in the class. Emil and the Detectives. White Fang. Like that. Money is tight for us, but when it comes to books my mother is a spendthrift; I can order as many as I like. I sit here day after day, waiting for my books to arrive. My books. It takes a month or more, but when they finally do, when the teacher opens the big box and passes out the orders to the kids, checking the books against a form taken from her desk, I glow with happiness. I've never had the newest dress, or the prettiest, but I always have the tallest stack of books. Little paperbacks that smell of wet ink. I lay my cheek against their cool covers, anticipating the stories inside, knowing all the other girls wonder what I could possibly want with those books.”
― Greg Iles, Dead Sleep

“Люди наделяются физической красотой в результате игры слепого случая. Это дар, который дается не за какие-то заслуги, а просто так. Тут абсолютно нечем гордиться.”
― Greg Iles, Dead Sleep

“Because I expected so little, Gaines's painting is startlingly powerul. A lank-haired blond woman with a hard face sits at akitchen table in the harsh light of a bare bulb. She's surrounded by dirty cereal bowls and fast-food bags, and her shirt is open to the waist, revealing small sagging breasts. Her hollow eyes look out from the canvas with the sullen resignation of an animal that has helped build its own cage.”
― Greg Iles, Dead Sleep

“Wingate sighs thoughtfully. "Hard to say. He's not static. He began with almost pure Impressionism, which is dead. Anyone can do it. But the vision was there. Between the fifth and twelfth paintings, he began to evolve something much more fascinating. Are you familiar with the Nabis?"
The what?"
Nabis. It means 'prophets.' Bonnard, Denis, Vuillard?"
What I know about art wouldn't fill a postcard."
Don't blame yourself. That's the American educational system. They simply don't teach it. Not unless you beg for it. Not even in university.”
― Greg Iles, Dead Sleep

“As I turned toward it, a premonitory wave of heat flashed across my neck and shoulders, and I felt the dry itch of the past rubbing against the present.”
― Greg Iles, Dead Sleep

“I’d come home after eighteen hours of looking at murdered children and she’d be upset that the new drapes for the living room didn’t quite match the carpet. I tried more than once to explain it to her, but when I told the unvarnished truth, she didn’t want to know. Who would, if they didn’t have to? She had to shut all that out, and I got shut out with it.”
― Greg Iles, Dead Sleep

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming’?”
― Greg Iles, Dead Sleep

“Kaiser and Lenz are staring at each other like hunters who have walked into a thicket after a lion and found a unicorn.”
― Greg Iles, Dead Sleep

“As we move, a roar like the voice of some satanic creature bellows from the staircase. The fire’s voice. I’ve heard it in lots of places, and the sound turns my insides to jelly. There’s a reason human beings will jump ten floors onto concrete to escape being burned alive. That roar is part of it.”
― Greg Iles, Dead Sleep