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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: 88
Born: 1936
Born: December 5
Author
Novelist
Writer
Houston
Texas
Writer
Sociological
Novel
Cain
Views
Neglected
Literature
James
American
Replaced
Think
Tradition
Thinking
Crime
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Progenitor

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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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Using a first-person narrator is simply a matter of hearing the voice inside yourself.
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We all end up in the same place. Some sonner than others.
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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.
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God bless the Reference Librarians
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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 gain no wisdom by imposing our way on others.
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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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THE ALLURE OF Montana is like a commitment to a narcotic you can never use it up or get enough of it. Its wilderness areas probably resemble the earth on the first day of creation.
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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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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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Louisiana is a fresh-air mental asylum.
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Success, like fashion, is a fickle companion and can leave one in the wink of an eye.
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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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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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One day you'll have a quiet heart.
James Lee Burke
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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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...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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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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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