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To misuse one's talent, to be cavalier about it, to set it aside because of fear or sloth is unpardonable.

James Lee Burke

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James Lee Burke
Age: 87
Born: 1936
Born: December 5
Author
Novelist
Writer
Houston
Texas
Cavalier
Unpardonable
Misuse
Sloth
Aside
Talent
Fear

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There's nothing like rejection to make you do an inventory of yourself.
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I feel blessed in the knowledge that I probably belong to the last generation that will remember what we call traditional America.
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The only thing an artist has to remember is to never lose faith in his vision.
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...and I wonder if there is any way to adequately describe the folly that causes us to undo all the great gifts of both Earth and Heaven.
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I believe the causes that create them [serial killers] are theological in nature, rather than societal. I believe they make a conscious choice to erase God's thumbprint from their souls.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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We all end up in the same place. Some sonner than others.
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The real gladiators of the world are so humble in their origins and unremarkable in appearance that when we stand next to them in a grocery-store line, we never guess how brightly their souls can burn in the dark.
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Neither our own passing nor the passing of an era is a tragedy, no matter how much we would like to think it is.
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Age is a clever thief. It takes a little from you each day, so you're not aware of your loss until it'd irreversible.
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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.
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There is no higher form of artistic expression then film
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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We gain no wisdom by imposing our way on others.
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It has been my experience that most human stories are circular rather than linear. Regardless of the path we choose, we somehow end up where we commenced - in part, I suspect, because the child who lives in us goes along for the ride.
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.
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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.
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