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

Categorized in : Country Men Greatest Fear

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

rejection one-day auctions

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.

James Lee Burke

real humble dark

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

who-we-are skins tragedy

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

mirrors morning men

I believe every...man remembers the girl he thinks he should have married. She reappears to him in his lonely moments, or he sees her in the face of a young girl in the park, buying a snowball under an oak tree by the baseball diamond. But she belongs to back there, to somebody else, and that thought sometimes rends your heart in a way that you never share with anyone else.

James Lee Burke

girl lonely baseball

Then the sun broke above the crest of the hills and the entire countryside looked soaked in blood, the arroyos deep in shadow, the cones of dead volcanoes stark and biscuit-colored against the sky. I could smell pinion trees, wet sage, woodsmoke, cattle in the pastures, and creek water that had melted from snow. I could smell the way the country probably was when it was only a dream in the mind of God.

James Lee Burke

volcanoes dream country

Don't ever quit. Never quit. Never show anybody you're hurt. Grin and walk through the cannon smoke. It will drive them up the wall. You always stay true to your own principles. You always believe in your gift. God doesn't make mistakes when he presents someone with a gift like that. It's there for a reason. Tell the naysayers, those who reject you, to drop dead! Who cares?

James Lee Burke

wall hurt mistake

The system shaves the dice on the side of those with money and power, and anyone who believes otherwise deserves anything that happens to him.

James Lee Burke

dice sides believe

I also believe my home state is cursed by ignorance and poverty and racism, much of it deliberately inculcated to control a vulnerable electorate. And I believe many of the politicians in Louisiana are among the most stomach-churning examples of white trash and venality I have ever known. To me, the fact that large numbers of people find them humorously picaresque is mind numbing, on a level with telling fond tales of one's rapist.

James Lee Burke

ignorance home believe

How do you explain to yourself the casual manner in which you threw your life away?

James Lee Burke

casual

...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

earth heaven way

When you find the right people, you never let go. The people who count are the ones who are your friends in lean times. You have all the friends you want when things are going well.

James Lee Burke

want letting-go people

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

path stories children

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

clock waste people

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

mail home writing

In the alluvial sweep of the land, I thought I could see the past and the present and the future all at once, as though time were not sequential in nature but took place without a beginning or an end, like a flash of green light rippling outward from the center of creation, not unlike a dream inside the mind of God.

James Lee Burke

light dream past

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

heart winter spring

When people make a contract with the devil and give him an air-conditioned office to work in, he doesn't go back home easily.

James Lee Burke

air home people

There's no substitute for loyalty.

James Lee Burke

substitutes loyalty

There's nothing like rejection to make you do an inventory of yourself.

James Lee Burke

rejects-you inventory rejection