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You do it a day at a time. You write as well as you can, you put it in the mail, you leave it under submission, you never leave it at home.

James Lee Burke

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James Lee Burke
Age: 87
Born: 1936
Born: December 5
Author
Novelist
Writer
Houston
Texas
Write
Home
Wells
Well
Writing
Never
Submission
Time
Mail
Leave

More quotes by James Lee Burke

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Age is a peculiar kind of thief. It slips up on you and steps inside your skin and is so quiet and methodical in its work that you never realize it has stolen your youth until you look into the mirror one morning and see a man you don't recognize.
James Lee Burke
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Louisiana is a fresh-air mental asylum.
James Lee Burke
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And like most middle-aged people who hear the clock ticking in their lives, I had come to resent a waste or theft of my time that was greater than any theft of my goods or money.
James Lee Burke
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Success, like fashion, is a fickle companion and can leave one in the wink of an eye.
James Lee Burke
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If you put somebody on a crack pipe and give them a 9 mm Baretta, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what's going to happen next.
James Lee Burke
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I think the crime novel has replaced the sociological novel of the 1930s. I think the progenitor of that tradition is James M. Cain, who in my view is the most neglected writer in American literature.
James Lee Burke
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If there is any human tragedy, there is only one, and it occurs when we forget who we are and remain silent while a stranger takes up residence inside our skin.
James Lee Burke
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But perhaps age has taught me that the earth is still new, molten at the core and still forming, that black leaves in the winter forest will crawl with life in the spring, that our story is ongoing and it is indeed a crime to allow the heart's energies to dissipate with the fading of light on the horizon.
James Lee Burke
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Don't let anyone tell you that age purchases your freedom from fear of death.
James Lee Burke
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Is there a design in the events of our lives? Or do things just happen, much like a junk yard falling down a staircase? If it's the latter, how do you deal with it?
James Lee Burke
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God bless the Reference Librarians
James Lee Burke
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I could only wonder again at the white race's naïveté in always sending forth our worst members as our emissaries.
James Lee Burke
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The only thing an artist has to remember is to never lose faith in his vision.
James Lee Burke
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That's one of the great advantages of age. You can say, I don't want to, I don't care, you can throw temper tantrums, and nobody minds.
James Lee Burke
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..why is it that in problematic situations almost everyone resorts to axioms and societal remedies that in actuality almost nobody believes in?...ask yourself, have you ever known anyone whose marriage was saved by a marriage counselor, whose drinking was cured by a psychiatrist, whose son was kept out of reform school by a social worker?
James Lee Burke
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Hackberry Holland's greatest fear was his fellow man's propensity to act collectively, in militaristic lockstep, under the banner of God and country. Mobs did not rush across town to do good deeds, and in Hackberry's view, there was no more odious taint on any social or political endeavor than universal approval.
James Lee Burke
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And every good artist knows that the gift comes from somewhere else, and it's there for a reason, and that's to make the world a better place.
James Lee Burke
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I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I'm going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box.
James Lee Burke
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We gain no wisdom by imposing our way on others.
James Lee Burke
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One day you'll have a quiet heart.
James Lee Burke