The Border Quotes

“The ‘Mexican drug problem’ is not the Mexican drug problem. It is the American drug problem. We are the buyers, and without buyers, there can be no sellers.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“There has always been philosophical speculation on the question, What if there were no God? Keller thinks as he walks through the slush. But no one has really asked, much less answered, the question, What if there were no Satan? The answer to the former is that there would be chaos in heaven and on earth. But the answer to the latter is that there would be chaos in hell—all the lesser demons would be set loose in an amoral struggle to become the new Prince of Darkness. The fight for heaven is one thing. The fight for hell … If God is dead, and so is Satan, well … Merry Christmas.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“The good things in this world aren’t done by saints. They’re done by compromised people doing the best they can.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“A border is something that divides us but also unites us; there can be no real wall, just as there is no wall that divides the human soul between its best impulses and its worst.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“Accept grace when it’s offered,”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“Mexico is a country where the temples of the new gods are built on the gravesites of the old.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“looks out at a wave breaking like a white pencil being drawn across a blue piece of paper.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“It only makes sense, he thinks, that people whose only loyalty is to money would find each other. Shit seeks its own level.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“There has always been philosophical speculation on the question, What if there were no God? Keller thinks as he walks through the slush. But no one has really asked, much less answered, the question, What if there were no Satan?”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“Nothing is emptier than an empty house.
The vacant kitchen chair, the imprint on a sofa cushion, the pillow unsplayed with hair, absent of scent. An unspoken thought, an unshared laugh, the silence of no footsteps, no sighs, no breaths.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“Keller wakes up the morning after the election thinking that he doesn't know his own country anymore.
we're not, he thinks, who I thought we were.
Not who I thought we were at all....
What depresses him is loss of an ideal, an identity, an image of what this country is.
Or was.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“I eat chunky little boys like Sean Hannity for lunch.” True enough, Keller thinks. This woman faced down the goddamn Zetas. “We”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“The toll of the “Mall shooting” was horrific, but not as bad as it could have been. Five dead and fourteen wounded. The aftermath was the usual—thoughts and prayers and talk about gun control and mental health and then absolutely nothing was done.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“You just said that you decapitated the major cartels,” one of the senators says.
“Exactly,” Keller says. “And what was the result? An increase in drug exports into the United States. In modeling the war against terrorists, we’ve been following the wrong model. Terrorists are reluctant to take over the top spots of their dead comrades—but the profits from drug trafficking are so great that there is always someone willing to step up. So all we’ve really done is to create job vacancies worth killing for.”
The other major strategy of interdiction—the effort to prevent drugs from coming across the border—also hasn’t worked, he explains to them. The agency estimates that, at best, they seize about 15 percent of the illicit drugs coming across the border, even though, in their business plans, the cartels plan for a 30 percent loss.
“Why can’t we do better than that?” a senator asks.
“Because your predecessors passed NAFTA,” Keller says. “Three-quarters of the drugs come in on tractor-trailer trucks through legal crossings—San Diego, Laredo, El Paso—the busiest commercial crossings in the world. Thousands of trucks every day, and if we thoroughly searched every truck and car, we’d shut down commerce.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“says. “What happened to Barrera?”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“Hobbes said, ‘Hell is truth seen too late,’” Keller says. “I pray that this truth hasn’t come too late.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“Jason, he raped me.” “Oh.” Oh. That’s it. Oh. What you have to remember about this world, Jacqui knows, is that at the end of the day no one gives a shit. Not at the start of the day, either. At no time during the day does anyone give a shit.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“She sits up and sighs. “Problem?” “You’re not doing it right.” Not doing it right? Jacqui thinks. Like it’s what, a cappuccino? It’s a pretty simple equation there, dumbass. It’s suction, basic physics. “What do you want me to do different?” she asks. Like be Fergie, Jennifer Lawrence, a Kardashian? “Use your tongue more.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“Nothing is emptier than an empty house. The vacant kitchen chair, the imprint on a sofa cushion, the pillow unsplayed with hair, absent of scent. An unspoken thought, an unshared laugh, the silence of no footsteps, no sighs, no breaths.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“The way I understand it, God and the devil were in a giant battle to rule the world, right?” “I suppose.” “Right,” Adán said. “Look around you—the devil won.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“. It is the American drug problem. We are the buyers, and without buyers, there can be no sellers.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“we are more addicted to the war on drugs than to the drugs against which we wage the war.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win. —Stephen King”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“I’m not an administrator and don’t have a clue how to run a gigantic organization. That rap is accurate—I don’t. What I do have is you. I will give clear, concise direction and I trust you to make the organization work toward those objectives. What I expect from you is loyalty, honesty and hard work. What you can expect from me is loyalty, honesty, hard work and support. I will never stab you in the back, but I will stab you in the chest if I catch you playing games. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes—only slackers and cowards don’t make mistakes. But if we have a problem, I don’t want to be the last to know. I want your thoughts and your criticisms. I’m a big believer in the battleground of ideas—I don’t need the only word, just the last word.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“Su hijo era una ortodoncia andante, con su factura correspondiente: cuando no estaba en el dentista, estaba encerrado en su habitación haciéndose pajas; y su hija estaba resentida por haber tenido que dejar a sus amigos de Glendora, sobre todo a un tal Travis al que Eddie estaba seguro de que le hacía mamadas.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“He called a general meeting at which he said, “I’m not firing anybody. The knock on me is that I’m not an administrator and don’t have a clue how to run a gigantic organization. That rap is accurate—I don’t. What I do have is you. I will give clear, concise direction and I trust you to make the organization work toward those objectives. What I expect from you is loyalty, honesty and hard work. What you can expect from me is loyalty, honesty, hard work and support. I will never stab you in the back, but I will stab you in the chest if I catch you playing games. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes—only slackers and cowards don’t make mistakes. But if we have a problem, I don’t want to be the last to know. I want your thoughts and your criticisms. I’m a big believer in the battleground of ideas—I don’t need the only word, just the last word.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“We can say that the roots of the heroin epidemic are in Mexican soil, but opiates are always a response to pain. What is the pain in the heart of American society that sends us searching for a drug to lessen it, to dampen it?”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“Everything is political,” O’Brien says. “Especially these days.”
― Don Winslow, The Border

“Then know,” Caro said, “that you have to accept both sides of this thing. Enjoy the rewards, accept the losses, do the terrible things you sometimes have to do. Never shed blood you don’t have to, but when you have to, harden your heart and do it.”
― Don Winslow, The Border