Track of the Cat Quotes

“From long experience she knew that she wore her loneliness like armor. Very few people ever recognized it for what it was. To the casual observer it looked very much like arrogance. Sometimes it was.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“when she was a young woman she valued intelligence over all other human attributes. Now that she was older she valued kindness.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“...she couldn't decide which was worse: pending alcoholism, or remorseless unrelenting sobriety of the rest of her days.”
― Nevada Barr , Track of the Cat

“Criminals were a lazy bunch. If they weren’t, they’d get their MBAs and rob with impunity.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“Bureaucrats -- monkeys who hear no evil and see no evil -- are first in line for promotion.”
― Nevada Barr , Track of the Cat

“Trying to second-guess lunatics, drunks, or the Office of Personnel Management was an exercise in frustration. The logic totally eluded her.”
― Nevada Barr , Track of the Cat

“With the Regional Office breathing down her neck... Corinne had wanted to keep the Drury case low-key, uncontroversial. since Craig's disappearance had set he alarm bells off, Anna was willing to be she'd change tactics, make a noisy show of taking command of the situation. For a while the name of the game at Guadalupe Mountains would be Cover Your Ass.”
― Nevada Barr , Track of the Cat

“By the time they reached the Queens Highway turnoff, Anna found she liked Sheila more in memoriam that she would’ve guessed.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“Obscenity is the last resort of the ignorant.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“Christina's ex-husband was, to Anna's mind, everything a murderer should be. He was suave and self-assured. He dressed too well for his surroundings. His teeth were too white, too straight. Cat hair didn't adhere to his trousers and the wind didn't ruffle his hair. He looked the type able to strangle his CEO at the eleventh hole and still come in under par.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“There hadn’t been a god for many years. Not the nightgownclad patriarch of Sunday school coloring books; not the sensitive young man with the inevitable auburn ringlets Anna had stared through in the stained-glass windows at Mass; not the many-armed and many-faceted deities of the Bhagavad Gita that she’d worshipped alongside hashish and Dustin Hoffman in her college days. Even the short but gratifying parade of earth goddesses that had taken her to their ample bosoms in her early thirties had gone, though she remembered them with more kindness than the rest.

God was dead. Let Him rest in peace. Now, finally, the earth was hers with no taint of Heaven.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“A lot of people went through life feeling they’d been ripped off. The money, the good jobs, the beautiful women, the rich husbands, had been snatched away from them, given to the wrong people.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“In the end Christina may have been sorry she asked Anna along. To Alison’s great delight, Anna’s expert advice was two kittens, so they could play together when she was away at the sitter’s all day.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“Rogelio has a feminine side,” Anna countered. “From what you’ve told me, Rogelio has a weak side. Not at all the same.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“It crossed her mind to take the pledge, go on the wagon, but she couldn’t decide which was worse: pending alcoholism, or remorseless unrelenting sobriety of the rest of her days.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“A little wine is good for the soul.” “A lot is better.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“everybody’s got ten good reasons to do away with everybody else. It’s just nobody knows how. Do ‘how.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“A little wine is good for the soul.

A lot is better.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“It ain't gonna happen. You get a lot to learn about ranchers. We defend what's ours. From varmints and the goddam Park Service.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“Take my professional word for it: everybody's got ten good reasons to do away with everybody else. It's just nobody knows how.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“As a Park Ranger I will protect and serve you...But we'll never be friends. Is that going to be a problem?

The tarantula stopped, its front pair of legs feeling the air.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat

“Now, finally, the earth was hers with no taint of Heaven.”
― Nevada Barr, Track of the Cat