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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
Literature
James
American
Replaced
Think
Tradition
Thinking
Crime
View
Progenitor
Writer
Sociological
Novel
Cain
Views
Neglected

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Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.
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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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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.
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There is no higher form of artistic expression then film
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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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...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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..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?
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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.
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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.
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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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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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Using a first-person narrator is simply a matter of hearing the voice inside yourself.
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There's nothing like rejection to make you do an inventory of yourself.
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The only thing an artist has to remember is to never lose faith in his vision.
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We all end up in the same place. Some sonner than others.
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One day you'll have a quiet heart.
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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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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.
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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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