James Sallis quotes:

Get Carter remains among the great crime novels, a lean, muscular portrait of a man stumbling along the hard edge - toward redemption. Ted Lewis cuts to the bone.

He existed a step or two to one side of the common world, largely out of sight, a shadow, all but invisible. Whatever he owned, either he could hoist it on his back and lug it along or he could walk away from it. Anonymity was the thing he loved most about the city, being a part of it and apart from it at the same time.

Bombs fall and wipe out civilization as we know it, two things come up out of the ashes: roaches and F-150s.

In the darkness things always go away from you. Memory holds you down while regret and sorrow kick hell out of you. The only help you'll get is a few hard drinks and morning.

Truth is, of course, relative. But then, so is relative.

The best predictor of preschool children's physical activity is simply being outdoors.

Mostly what you lose with time, in memory, is the specificity of things, their exact sequence. It all runs together, becomes a watery soup. Portmanteau days, imploded years. Like a bad actor, memory always goes for effect, abjuring motivation, consistency, good sense.

Here we raise his children for him, cook for him, bring up his crops, butcher his hogs - even fight his wars for him - and he still won't acknowledge our existence.

What critics might call eclectic, and Eastern folks quirky, we Southerners call cussedness-and it's the cornerstone of the American genius. As in: 'There's a right way, a wrong way, and my way.' You want to see how that looks on the page, pick up any of Craig McDonald's novels. He's built him a nice little shack out there way off all the reg'lar roads, and he's brewing some fine, heady stuff. Leave your money under the rock and come back in an hour.

Life sends us messages all the time - then sits around laughing over how we're not gonna be able to figure them out.

Time went by, which is what time does, what it is.