The Cumberland Killers Quotes

“Our editor, Harry Combs did not suffer fools gladly, although he insisted we cater to the fools that read the newspaper.”
― James Aura, The Cumberland Killers: A Kentucky Mystery

“First came the wail of a siren across the valley, and then because light travels faster than blood, we saw an explosion, and a second later we felt it and heard the ear-splitting blast.”
― James Aura, The Cumberland Killers: A Kentucky Mystery

“Ike noticed the preacher had pictures of Ronald Reagan and Jesse Helms in his office, with a portrait of Jesus in the middle. Ike said that seemed appropriate since the Bible said Jesus was nailed up between two thieves. The preacher didn’t like that much, so Ike quit going to church for awhile.”
― James Aura, The Cumberland Killers: A Kentucky Mystery

“We focused our attention on the tall businessman. His rhetoric did not soar. Even his voice was gray; bleak like a dead possum in melting, muddy snow.”
― James Aura, The Cumberland Killers: A Kentucky Mystery

“Early one morning in the spring of 1985, I woke up and walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and didn’t even know it.”
― James Aura, The Cumberland Killers: A Kentucky Mystery

“The second blast sounded like the last trump at judgment day. It was so loud I thought the rear windshield was going to burst and the filling in my tooth was going to fall out.”
― James Aura, The Cumberland Killers: A Kentucky Mystery

“You’re supposed to be objective. What use is the news if it’s not objective?”
― James Aura, The Cumberland Killers: A Kentucky Mystery

“She smiled. “I love that old song about Muhlenberg County; John Denver did it, I think.”
“Him and a dozen others. But John Prine wrote and sang the original. It’s one of our claims to fame.”
She quietly began to sing under her breath, “Daddy…won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County…”
― James Aura, The Cumberland Killers: A Kentucky Mystery

“Well if the horse likes you, I reckon I won’t shoot you, then.”
― James Aura, The Cumberland Killers: A Kentucky Mystery

“As of this writing, legislative efforts to block mountaintop removal mining have been unsuccessful. More than 2,300 square miles of mountains, an area larger than the state of Delaware, have been destroyed in Appalachia by mountaintop mining since 1985. Debris from these mines buried more than 2,000 miles of headwater streams.”
― James Aura, The Cumberland Killers: A Kentucky Mystery