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21 " When reporters asked him why he wanted to be president, Lombard mouthed the same elegant clichés that his forebears had uttered—platitudes about service and country and having a vision for the future of the nation. It was nonsense, of course, and he doubted that they had meant it any more than he did. The truth? When else in human history could someone ascend bloodlessly to become the most powerful man in the world? It was the chance to be a civilized god, and he didn’t trust anyone who aspired to less. But the difference between him and most people was that he’d been born for it. Made for it. The "
― Matthew FitzSimmons , The Short Drop (Gibson Vaughn, #1)
22 " Most people think they’d always want to live longer, but twenty minutes at the end of a rope is a long time to die. A long time to regret things that cannot be changed and that no longer matter. "
23 " Officer Patricia M. Daniels was not particularly happy to see them. She looked Jenn and Hendricks up and down and went back to hunting and pecking at her keyboard. “Usually "
24 " She had no doubt that being black in the LAPD—an organization with a historically awful record of race relations—could embitter even the most resilient person. "
25 " What are they trying to draw your eye away from? "
26 " The man rapped his knuckles on the wooden counter for luck. "
27 " When he was a kid, Gibson had mispronounced George Abe’s name until his father corrected him: “Ah-bay. More Japanese, less Lincoln.” As "
28 " It took time to break a devout man of his beliefs, and it was a terrible thing to witness. "
29 " Some speed-metal band that believed anything less than 250 beats a minute was elevator music. It amazed her what some people listened to voluntarily. She only knew it as the playlist of CIA black-site detention facilities around the world. "
30 " Google’s no substitute for knowing things. "
31 " There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it. "
32 " maudlin "
33 " considered "
34 " What kind of selfish prick hangs himself where he’ll be found by his fifteen-year-old son? No note, nothing. It was unforgivable. "
35 " There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it. —George Bernard Shaw "
36 " You drink more coffee than a busload of bad poets,” Toby said, "
37 " Interior design courtesy of Franz Kafka. "
38 " Measuring one’s life in terms of days was purposeless. "
39 " Most people were overawed by time. They allowed time to bully them, fearing that it was passing too fast or too slowly, sometimes both simultaneously. "
40 " Never leave accounts unsettled. "