“Because as any writer will tell you, an IDEA for a book is like falling in love, it’s all wild emotion and headlong rush, but the ACTUAL ACT of writing a book is like building a relationship: it is joyous, slow, fragile, frustrating, exhilarating, painstaking, exhausting, worth it.”
―
Ben H. Winters,
The Last Policeman
“It is a strange kind of fire, the fire of self-righteousness, which gives us such pleasure by its warmth but does so little to banish the darkness.” ― Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines
“The first time we met he shot me in the head with an electric staple gun, but our relationship has evolved in the subsequent months.” ― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble
“Respectfully, sir, the asteroid did not make you leave her. The asteroid is not making anyone do anything. It's just a big piece of rock floating through space. Anything anyone does remains their own decision.” ― Ben H. Winters, Countdown City
“There is little novelty in the detective who cannot solve himself.” ― Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman
“Sometimes it's possible, just barely possible, to imagine a version of this world different from the existing one, a world in which there is true justice, heroic honesty, a clear perception possessed by each individual about how to treat all the others. Sometimes I swear I could see it, glittering in the pavement, glowing between the words in a stranger's sentence, a green, impossible vision--the world as it was meant to be, like a mist around the world as it is.” ― Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines
“It must be that there is something in the hearts of human beings, some natural fluid perhaps, that insists on happiness, even confronted with the most powerful arguments against it.” ― Ben H. Winters, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
“He books it into that little playground there. I mean the guy is zooming like the Road Runner, skidding through the gravel and the slush and everything. I’m yelling, “Police, police! Stop, motherfucker!” ‘You do not yell, “Stop, motherfucker.”’ ‘I do. Because you know, Palace, this is it. This is the last chance I get to run after a perp yelling, “Stop, motherfucker.” ― Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman
“Now I see things differently. It took me some time, but I know the secret now. Freedman Town serves a good purpose -- not for the people who live there, Lord knows; people stuck there by poverty, by prejudice, by laws that keep them from moving or working. Freedman Town's purpose is for the rest of the world. The world that sits, like Martha, with dark glasses on, staring from a distance, scared but safe. Create a pen like that, give people no choice but to live like animals, and then people get to point at them and say 'Will you look at those animals? That's what kind of people those people are.' And that idea drifts up and out of Freedman Town like chimney smoke, black gets to mean poor and poor to mean dangerous and all the words get murked together and become one dark idea, a cloud of smoke, the smokestack fumes drifting like filthy air across the rest of the nation.” ― Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines
“Freedom is a matter of logistics.” ― Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines
“What the slave wants but can never have is not only freedom from the chains but also from their memory.” ― Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines
“They are Librarians, and they do not fuck around.” ― Ben H. Winters, Golden State
“The end of the world changes everything, from a law-enforcement perspective.” ― Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman
“People’s inability to face up to this thing is worse than the thing, it really is.” ― Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman
“Beautifully indeed! But she does everything well. Have you seen her peel a banana? It is like listening to a symphony.” ― Ben H. Winters, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
“It is remarkable, when you consider it, all the complicated worlds we construct to avoid anything that might disturb us or cause us pain. The bulwarks and baffles we build up, the moats and the mazes.” ― Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines
“Because a promise is a promise, Officer Cavatone, and civilization is just a bunch of promises, that’s all it is. A mortgage, a wedding vow, a promise to obey the law, a pledge to enforce it. And now the world is falling apart, the whole rickety world, and every broken promise is a small rock tossed at the wooden side of its tumbling form.” ― Ben H. Winters, Countdown City
“He's weeping, his face dissolving in his hands. It's exhausting. People hiding behind the asteroid, like it's an excuse for poor conduct, for miserable and desperate and selfish behavior, everybody ducking in its comet-tail like children in mommy's skirts.” ― Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman
“She was reserved and cold, as if having been stolen from her native village in a burlap sack and made to be servant and helpmate to an Englishman many years her senior, for some reasons sat poorly with her.” ― Ben H. Winters, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
“It is a strange kind of fire, the fire of self-righteousness, which gives us such pleasure by its warmth but does so little to banish the darkness.” ― Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines
“The first time we met he shot me in the head with an electric staple gun, but our relationship has evolved in the subsequent months.” ― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble
“Respectfully, sir, the asteroid did not make you leave her. The asteroid is not making anyone do anything. It's just a big piece of rock floating through space. Anything anyone does remains their own decision.” ― Ben H. Winters, Countdown City
“There is little novelty in the detective who cannot solve himself.” ― Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman
“Sometimes it's possible, just barely possible, to imagine a version of this world different from the existing one, a world in which there is true justice, heroic honesty, a clear perception possessed by each individual about how to treat all the others. Sometimes I swear I could see it, glittering in the pavement, glowing between the words in a stranger's sentence, a green, impossible vision--the world as it was meant to be, like a mist around the world as it is.” ― Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines
“It must be that there is something in the hearts of human beings, some natural fluid perhaps, that insists on happiness, even confronted with the most powerful arguments against it.” ― Ben H. Winters, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
“He books it into that little playground there. I mean the guy is zooming like the Road Runner, skidding through the gravel and the slush and everything. I’m yelling, “Police, police! Stop, motherfucker!” ‘You do not yell, “Stop, motherfucker.”’ ‘I do. Because you know, Palace, this is it. This is the last chance I get to run after a perp yelling, “Stop, motherfucker.” ― Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman
“Now I see things differently. It took me some time, but I know the secret now. Freedman Town serves a good purpose -- not for the people who live there, Lord knows; people stuck there by poverty, by prejudice, by laws that keep them from moving or working. Freedman Town's purpose is for the rest of the world. The world that sits, like Martha, with dark glasses on, staring from a distance, scared but safe. Create a pen like that, give people no choice but to live like animals, and then people get to point at them and say 'Will you look at those animals? That's what kind of people those people are.' And that idea drifts up and out of Freedman Town like chimney smoke, black gets to mean poor and poor to mean dangerous and all the words get murked together and become one dark idea, a cloud of smoke, the smokestack fumes drifting like filthy air across the rest of the nation.” ― Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines
“Freedom is a matter of logistics.” ― Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines
“What the slave wants but can never have is not only freedom from the chains but also from their memory.” ― Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines
“They are Librarians, and they do not fuck around.” ― Ben H. Winters, Golden State
“The end of the world changes everything, from a law-enforcement perspective.” ― Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman
“People’s inability to face up to this thing is worse than the thing, it really is.” ― Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman
“Beautifully indeed! But she does everything well. Have you seen her peel a banana? It is like listening to a symphony.” ― Ben H. Winters, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
“It is remarkable, when you consider it, all the complicated worlds we construct to avoid anything that might disturb us or cause us pain. The bulwarks and baffles we build up, the moats and the mazes.” ― Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines
“Because a promise is a promise, Officer Cavatone, and civilization is just a bunch of promises, that’s all it is. A mortgage, a wedding vow, a promise to obey the law, a pledge to enforce it. And now the world is falling apart, the whole rickety world, and every broken promise is a small rock tossed at the wooden side of its tumbling form.” ― Ben H. Winters, Countdown City
“He's weeping, his face dissolving in his hands. It's exhausting. People hiding behind the asteroid, like it's an excuse for poor conduct, for miserable and desperate and selfish behavior, everybody ducking in its comet-tail like children in mommy's skirts.” ― Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman
“She was reserved and cold, as if having been stolen from her native village in a burlap sack and made to be servant and helpmate to an Englishman many years her senior, for some reasons sat poorly with her.” ― Ben H. Winters, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
