William Kent Krueger Quotes

Once someone's dead, being sorry doesn't cut it. If you hit a man, you can apologize. If you destroy his property, you can pay him back. But if you take his life, there's nothing you can ever do to make that right. Do you understand?

If he expected an answer - and he wasn't certain that he didn't - he was disappointed. He told himself he had imagined the voice in the wind. The Windigo was a myth.
But there was a part of him that knew different. Sam Winter Moon has cautioned him long ago that it was best to believe in all possibilities, that there were more mysteries in the world than a man could ever hope to understand.

Me, I love this land, the work. Never was a churchgoer. God all penned up under a roof? I don't think so. Ask me, God's right here. In the dirt, the rain, the sky, the trees, the apples, the stars in the cottonwoods. In you and me, too. It's all connected and it's all God. Sure this is hard work, but it's good work because it's a part of what connects us to this land, Buck. This beautiful tender land.

Although I'd had no trouble looking at the casket the day before, on that Saturday I did my best to keep my eyes averted. I stared instead at the stained-glass window behind the altar and imagined shooting the panes out with a slingshot.

In every sinner is the possibility of a saint.

I was a sinner. I knew that without a doubt. But I was not alone. And the night was the accomplice of us all.

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful graces of God.

She hung up and the room was a fist of silence. page 233

What is happiness, Nathan? In my experience, it's only a moment's pause here and there on what is otherwise a long and difficult road. No one can be happy all the time. Better, I think, to wish for her wisdom, a virtue not so fickle.

If we put everything in God's hands, maybe we don't have to be afraid anymore.

Nicole Baart has written a novel that satisfies on every level. Sleeping In Eden is a compelling mystery, a tragic love story, a perceptive consideration of the callous whim of circumstance and, perhaps most important, a beautiful piece of prose. I guarantee this is a book that will haunt you long after you've turned the last page.

Cork wished there were a forecast for his spirit. He felt the dark and the cold penetrating deep in him. He wondered when there would be warmth again, when there would be light.

When you're a writer, you're always looking for conflict. It's conflict that drives great stories.

That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.

She gave Mother Beal a look I couldn't, at that age, interpret but I have since come to think of as profound maternal compassion, a strength emanating from a deep well of endurance that, across my life, I've come to understand was not particular to Sarah Schofield. I've witnessed it in other women who have suffered much without losing their hope or their gift for embracing with forgiveness those who are broken.

I think that whether we acknowledge it or not, our opinions as authors always influence our work. How can they not?

To kill the Windigo, Meloux had said, you must become a Windigo, too.
A man was never just a man. A man was endless possibility waiting to become.

Everything that's been done to use we carry forever. Most of us do our damnedest to hold on to the good and forget the rest. But somewhere in the vault of our hearts, in a place our brains can't or won't touch, the worst is stored, and the only sure key to it is in our dreams.

Bobby had a secret. You know what it was? It took nothing to make him happy. That was it. He held happiness in his hand easy as if he'd just, I don't know, plucked a blade of grass form the ground. And all he did his whole short life was offer that happiness to anybody who'd smile at him. That's all he wanted form me. From you. From anybody. A smile.

The heart is a rubber ball. No matter how hard it's crushed, it bounces back.

I need some-" Cork thought a moment. "I was going to say advice, but the truth is, I need some guidance, Tom."
"We all do sometimes. It's not always easy to admit.

Word is you heard the Windigo too."
I did. The difference is I'm ready for the son of a bitch."
Cork O'Connor

Haven't you seen that part of me as well? A man's many things. To isolate one part of him and judge him on that alone is to do him an injustice, don't you think?

And what I know from my studies and from my life is that there is no such thing as a true event. We know dates and times and locations and participants but accounts of what happened depend upon the perspective from which the event is viewed.

She [Jo] recalled them holding one another and feeling a terrible numbness where caring should have been. She'd blamed it on the circumstances, the weight of what each of them carried that night, the responsibilities. But it wasn't that. They were holding something dying, maybe already dead, but they were too scared to admit it.
She wondered why the tragedy at Burke's Landing hadn't brought them together. Adversity was supposed to do that, wasn't it? Instead, everything got worse. Cork wasn't just distant. Something in him seemed to have died along with the other deaths that drizzly morning. Nothing mattered.

He'd [Cork] learned early not to invest a lot of emotion in thinking about the truth in a crime. As a cop, he'd gathered evidfence that had been used to guess at the truth, but in the end responsibility for assembling the pieces and nailing truth to the wall was in the hands of others - lawyers, judges, and juries. Truth became a democratic process, the will of twelve. He'd been burned when he cared too deeply. As a result, he'd trained himself to remain a little distant in his emotional involvement on a case. In the end, the outcome was out of his hands, and to allow himself to believe too strongly in the absoluteness of a thing he couldn't control was useless. He felt different now. Desperate in a way. This time he had to hold the truth in his own hands like a beating heart.

This anger in your eyes, is it because you are hunting the Windigo?".
"I don't know what it is I'm hunting, Henry."
Meloux nodded thoughtfully, still looking keenly at Cork. "The Windigo was a man once. His heart was not always ice. What makes a man's heart turn to ice? I would think bout that, and I would think about how to fight the Windigo.

Somebody tells you they drink because they're a failure, it ain't so. They're a failure because they drink. And they drink because it's so damn hard not to. But as long as they have a bottle that isn't empty, they never feel far from being happy.
("Bums")

The dead are never far from us. They're in our hearts and on our minds and in the end all that separates us from them is a single breath, one final puff of air.

There was no point in looking again. He [Cork] knew that. No point except to feed the coldness inside him. In a strange way, that was exactly what he wanted now. He wanted to feed himself to the cold until the cold had consumed him and he didn't care anymore.

You are the light. The darkness will always try to snuff you out.

leaning hard into the wind in order to complete the job expected of him. He was an Eagle

Few things were so sure and simple that they could be taken at face value.

That night, as Cork lay in his bedroll, he thought about the bear they were after. He was glad Sam had changed his mind about killing the great animal, but he hoped they would at least see it. He thought about the Windigo, which was something he hoped he would not see. And he thought about his father, whom he would never see again. These were all elements of his life, and although they were separate things, they were now intertwined somehow like the roots of a tree. All his life he would remember the bear hunt with Sam Winter Moon. In some manner he didn't quite understand, the hunt had opened a way in him for the grief to begin passing through. All his life he would be grateful to his father's friend.

God never promised us an easy life. He never promised that we wouldn't suffer, that we wouldn't feel despair and loneliness and confusion and desperation. What he did promise was that in our suffering we would never be alone. And though we may sometimes make ourselves blind and deaf to his presence he is beside us and around us and within us always. We are never separated from his love. And he promised us something else, the most important promise of all. That there would be surcease. That there would be an end to our pain and our suffering and our loneliness, that we would be with him and know him, and this would be heaven.

I don't know any real billionaires.

I thought if you loved someone you were supposed to, like, forgive them. I thought that was what love was supposed to be all about."
Cork shook his head: "Easy to say, harder to do.

The devil's best defense is a person's disbelief in his existence.

People who don't know me well wonder that I'd give up my badge for an apron, thinking that flipping burgers is a big step down. If they asked me, which they don't, I would tell them that when a man stumbles onto happiness, he'd be a fool to pass it by. It's as simple as that. Sam's Place makes me happy.

The head and the heart, you know, they don't always see eye to eye.

Sam's Place had never felt so empty. He suspected the emptiness was not in the old Quonset hut; it was in him. There was nothing in him now, nothing but the great emptiness of death, which he seemed to carry with him like a virus.

I will tell you what's left, three profound blessings. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul tells us exactly what they are: faith, hope, and love,. These gifts, which are the foundation of eternity, God has given to us and he's given us complete control over them. Even in the darkest night it's still within our power to hold faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may feel ourselves unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who chooses to discard them.

Me, I was growing up scrambling for meaning and I was full of confusion and fear.

Cork, promise me something." "What?" "You won't do anything that'll get you hurt." "I'm not what you'd call a brave man," he assured her. She sighed, her breath making the hair at the back of his neck shiver. "Maybe not, but you're stubborn, and that's just as bad." After

It's not a question anymore of fishing," Sam spoke up. "It's a question of what's right, Cork. We've bent like reeds in a river for generations, bent so far over we've just about forgot how to stand up straight. Look at us now. None of us has ever been so proud of being a Shinnob.

Write because you love the work, not because of what might come from it. The journey is the purpose. Very Zen-like, I know, but honest to God it's the truth. And I have never had to deal with writer's block. Knock on wood.

She was used to dealing with worry by sinking herself completely into the facts of a situation. Her strength lay in her ability to scrutinize circumstances from every angle and to anticipate the moves of an opponent. But she didn't have facts and she didn't know her opponent, and all she was left with was the worry.

There is a deeper hurt than anything sustained by the body, and it's the wounding of the soul. It's the feeling that you've been abandoned by everyone, even God. It's the most alone you'll ever be. A wounded body heals itself, but there is a scar.

Fishing, Danny boy, is purely a state of mind. Some men, when they are fishing, are after fish. Me, I'm after things you could never set a barbed hook in.

The beauty isn't in the jewel itself, but in the way the light shines through it.

And what is happiness, Nathan? In my experience, it's only a moment's pause here and there on what is otherwise a long and difficult road. No one can be happy all the time.

Grief doesn't come in the moment of loss. It comes in the quiet of the aftermath.

down. He realized he hadn't taken a single sip.

Of all that we're asked to give others in this life, the most difficult to offer may be forgiveness.

Closing her eyes, she began to let herself dream. Not sleep dreaming, but dreaming of how her life might be. It was a thing she didn't often do. In her experience, good things came with great difficulty and were too easily snatched away. She'd longo ago learned to accept what she had at any given moment and try to be happy with only that. She could think about the furniture, plan even, but not expect. It was the expectation that was the trap.

Even in the darkest night it's still within our power to hold to faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may ourselves feel unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who choose to discard them.

He'd [Cork] delivered tragic news before. It had been part of the job, but he'd never become immune to he effect tragedy had on those who had to hear of it, and he'd never become used to his own feeling of helplessness in those situations.

Heavenly Father, for the blessings of this food and these friends and our families, we thank you. In Jesus's name, amen.

History. And from history came community. And community was something that spread out beyond itself, resulting in towns and nations. But it all began with family.

I watched the storm as I might have watched the approach and passing of a fierce and beautiful animal. The

It was time for Cork to return to the bed in the guest room. But he lingered beside this son who trusted him lay awake knowing there were monsters in the wind outside, that his son's fear was not unjustified, and that Stevie would have to face them alone someday. There were people out there so cruel they would wound him for the pleasure of it, dreadful circumstances no man in his worst imaginings could conjure, disappointments so overwhelming they could crush his dreams like eggshells. For a child like Stevie, a child of special graces, there would be such pain that Cork nearly wept in anticipation of it. Against those monsters, a father was powerless. But again the simple terrors of the night, he would do his best.

Our former selves are never dead. We speak to them, arguing against decisions we know will bring only unhappiness, offering consolation and hope, even though they cannot hear.

I know from my studies and from my life is that there is no such thing as a true event. We know dates and times and locations and participants but accounts of what happened depend upon the perspective from which the event is viewed. Take

Why would I be angry? Because they believe a thing does not make it so. There is no dignity in anger. But I am also not a kicked dog.

Returning to the Brandt home but I agreed to give a hand. We arrived after lunch and found Lise at work loading a wheelbarrow with the smaller stones from the huge pile beside the shed. The flower bed itself was in the middle of the yard, positioned in a sunny area between deep pools of shade that lay beneath a couple of tall hackberry trees.

Eddie now?" Larson asked. "Maybe she waited until

In the absence of proof, you believe.

The bottom line was that people who leaned too heavily on someone else were setting themselves up for a terrible fall, and they had no one to blame in the end but themselves for the hurt they suffered.
Cork had learned the hard way.

I have a good feeling about this. Somehow, it's all going to turn out for the best."
"I wish I did," Cork said.
"Maybe that's the difference between the law and religion. I hope for the best, you're prepared for the worst.

I used to ask for an easy life, now I ask to be strong.

In a small town nothing is private. Word spreads with the incomprehensibility of magic and the speed of plague.

I generally played a little fast and loose with my resources but I figured hell, a man's reach should exceed his grasp, especially in a stupid board game.

I'll tell you what I think defines greatness. The ability and willingness to perform in extraordinary ways.

Michael Koryta isn't just one of the finest authors working in the crime genre today. He's simply one of today's finest authors, period. His stories are taut, compelling, and beautifully rendered. His understanding of human nature-the good, the evil, and all the gray between-is masterful. THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD is Koryta at his best.

Straight is my path. Straight is my mind. Straight is my heart. Straight is my speech. Kind will I be to my brothers and sisters. Kind will I be to beast and bird.

God makes His presence known in many ways. In acts of love, in selfless acts of courage, in everyday human compassion.

I'm tired of feeling mad. I'm tired of feeling sad. . . I just want things to be okay again.

These days things had a way of happening around him. Although events seemed chaotic, Cork was beginning to suspect they weren't at all. Sam Winter Moon used to say that sometimes the only way a man learns the true spirit of a rock is to stub his toe on it.

In every sinner, Gertie, is the possibility of a saint.

Loss, once it's become a certainty, is like a rock you hold in your hand. It has weight and dimension and texture. It's solid and can be assessed and dealt with. You can use it to beat yourself or you can throw it away.

All the dying that summer began with the death of a child, a boy with golden hair and thick glasses, killed on the railroad tracks outside New Bremen, Minnesota, sliced into pieces by a thousand tons of steel speeding across the prairie toward South Dakota. His name was Bobby Cole. He was a sweet-looking kid and by that I mean he had eyes that seemed full of dreaming and he wore a half smile as if he was just about to understand something you'd spent an hour trying to explain. I should have known him better, been a better friend. He lived not far from my house and we were the same age. But he was two years behind me in school and might have been held back even more except for the kindness of certain teachers. He was a small kid, a simple child, no match at all for the diesel-fed drive of a Union Pacific locomotive. It

If it was true, as Henry Meloux said, that he'd heard the Windigo call his name, he understood why now. Because it felt exactly as if his heart had just been torn out of him and devoured.