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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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James Lee Burke
Age: 87
Born: 1936
Born: December 5
Author
Novelist
Writer
Houston
Texas
American
Replaced
Think
Tradition
Thinking
Crime
View
Progenitor
Writer
Sociological
Novel
Cain
Views
Neglected
Literature
James

More quotes by James Lee Burke

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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.
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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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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What's the worst thing about getting old? Getting old.
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Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.
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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..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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Don't let anyone tell you that age purchases your freedom from fear of death.
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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God bless the Reference Librarians
James Lee Burke
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Write for the love of your art. Someplace down the road, the money, the fame, they'll come, but by that time you won't be thinking in terms of money or fame.
James Lee Burke
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Louisiana is a fresh-air mental asylum.
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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...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.
James Lee Burke
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Using a first-person narrator is simply a matter of hearing the voice inside yourself.
James Lee Burke
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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.
James Lee Burke
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There is no higher form of artistic expression then film
James Lee Burke
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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.
James Lee Burke
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We decry violence all the time in this country, but look at our history. We were born in a violent revolution, and we've been in wars ever since. We're not a pacific people.
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