Chuck Hogan > Quotes

“The Tomorrow Man theory. It’s pretty basic. Today, right here, you are who you are. Tomorrow, you will be who you will be. Each and every night, we lie down to die, and each morning we arise, reborn. Now, those who are in good spirits, with strong mental health, they look out for their Tomorrow Man. They eat right today, they drink right today, they go to sleep early today–all so that Tomorrow Man, when he awakes in his bed reborn as Today Man, thanks Yesterday Man. He looks upon him fondly as a child might a good parent. He knows that someone–himself–was looking out for him. He feels cared for, and respected. Loved, in a word. And now he has a legacy to pass on to his subsequent selves…. But those who are in a bad way, with poor mental health, they constantly leave these messes for Tomorrow Man to clean up. They eat whatever the hell they want, drink like the night will never end, and then fall asleep to forget. They don’t respect Tomorrow Man because they don’t think through the fact that Tomorrow Man will be them. So then they wake up, new Today Man, groaning at the disrespect Yesterday Man showed them. Wondering why does that guy–myself–keep punishing me? But they never learn and instead come to settle for that behavior, eventually learning to ask and expect nothing of themselves. They pass along these same bad habits tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and it becomes psychologically genetic, like a curse. Looking at you now, Maven, I can see exactly where you fall on this spectrum. You are a man constantly trying to fix today what Yesterday Man did to you. You make up your bed, you clean those dirty dishes from the night before, and pledge not to start drinking until six, thinking that’s the way to keep an even keel. But in reality you’re always playing catch-up. I know this because I’ve been there. The thing is–you can’t fix the mistakes of Yesterday. Yesterday Man is dead, he’s gone forever, and blame and atonement aren’t worth a damn. What you can do is help yourself today. Eat a vegetable. Read a book. Cut that hair of yours. Leave Tomorrow Man something more than a headache and a jam-packed colon. Do for Tomorrow Man what you would have wanted Yesterday Man to do for you.”
― Chuck Hogan

“Nothing can unman you like an un-man.”
― Chuck Hogan, The Strain

“Sometimes the most difficult decision is to not martyr yourself for someone, but instead to choose to live for them. Because of them.”
― Chuck Hogan Guillermo Del Toro "The Fall"

“Even if a thing is doomed—there is that moment of absurd hope that is worth the fall, that is worth everything.”
― Chuck Hogan, The Town

“There are moments..., which usually come at the most inconvenient of times, such as crisis, when you look at someone and realize that it will hurt you to be without them.”
― Chuck Hogan and Guillermo Del Toro "The Strain"

“The only people who lawyer up faster than dirty cops are dirty lawyers.”
― Chuck Hogan, Devils in Exile

“The best way to kill a good thing is question it to death.”
― Chuck Hogan, Devils in Exile

“So why go out as a question mark when you can go out as an exclamation point instead?”
― Chuck Hogan, Devils in Exile

“These were kids for whom simple self-destruction wasn't enough.”
― Chuck Hogan, Devils in Exile

“Hiring a guy with more confirmed kills than college credits was a tough sell.”
― Chuck Hogan, Devils in Exile

“Looking back on one's life, you see that love was the answer to everything.”
― Chuck Hogan Guillermo Del Toro

“I'm a fucking porcupine with points.”
― Chuck Hogan, Prince of Thieves

“He was backing away behind cover fire with the engaged smile of a teenager seeing his violent daydreams come true.”
― Chuck Hogan, Prince of Thieves

“And there in her bewilderment he recognized his grave mistake. He had surrendered himself to Claire, just as Krista had to him. When you give someone the power to save you, you give them the power to destroy you as well.”
― Chuck Hogan

“Weakness is giving in to temptation. Strength is resisting it.”
― Chuck Hogan Guillermo Del Toro

“This is not intended as a record or a chronicle, but the poetry of fossils, a reminiscence of the end of civilization.
The dinosaurs left behind almost no trace of themselves. A few bones preserved in the amber, the contents of their stomachs, their waste.
I only hope that we may leave behind something more than they did.”
― Chuck Hogan

“At root, the business of baseball was no better or different from the movies or from church: put on a show, promise people something transcendent, and then bleed the suckers dry.”
― Chuck Hogan, Prince of Thieves

“How good it must feel to stand for something. To commit oneself to a lost cause. To gather with other like-minded souls and lock arms and sing songs under the stars. Wallowing in futility. Championing it, actually. How wonderful it must be to fight only losing battles. How safe and how comfortable. To posit yourself squarely on the side of peace and good. How brave the sand on an eroding beach.”
― Chuck Hogan, The Best American Mystery Stories 2008

“Thinking about drinking now was like fantasizing about the perfect crime. How he would do it—if he were going to do it.”
― Chuck Hogan, The Town

“No matter how much you change, you still have to pay the price for the things you’ve done, so I’ve got a long road. But I’ll know I’ll see you again, this side or the other.”
― Chuck Hogan, Prince of Thieves

“Makes sense to me. Over the years I’ve seen it prove out. Guys don’t become cops to help old ladies cross the street. They don’t come in looking to ‘do good.’ They come in looking to stop bad. They come in looking to impose order. It’s the uniform they join for, dressing themselves up in the law and wearing it around so everyone can see:”
― Chuck Hogan, The Killing Moon

“Esse mundo é muito filho da puta, não é? — disse Gus.

Angel assentiu.

— Mas é o único que nós temos.

Gus sentiu um arroubo de amor por aquele seu compatriota fodido.”
― Chuck Hogan

“Earlier, he had gone upstairs alone and pulled down a vinyl bag from the top shelf of the hall closet, where it had sat untouched for almost a decade. He had carried it to his bedroom bureau and lifted out the ball inside—a nicked-up urethane house ball, fourteen pounds, swirled blue and white like a marble version of Earth—stored along with the rental shoes he’d worn on the day, gifted to him by the bowling alley owner, and the signed and authorized score sheet. Inside a velvet clam box was the commemorative 300 ring he had been sent when the score was certified.”
― Chuck Hogan, Gangland

“Maddox, picking it up and hazarding a waft.”
― Chuck Hogan, The Killing Moon

“Maddox’s abrasions were far less worse than Hess had been led to believe,”
― Chuck Hogan, The Killing Moon

“As the song faded out, there was a spray of bullying laughter from the street below, then the pop and smash of a glass bottle shattering, followed by cursing, laughing, footsteps running away. “Nice,” grumbled Doug. Then the Little River Band came on, making it all right.”
― Chuck Hogan, Prince of Thieves

“Don’t you think that’s a little incredulous?”
― Chuck Hogan, Gangland

“The cavity was empty but for a few silica-gel packets, the Do Not Eat kind packed inside sneaker boxes to absorb moisture. Frawley put his face to the opening. The smell he got was the unmistakable old-linen odor of stored cash.”
― Chuck Hogan, Prince of Thieves

“nine times out of ten, romance is a problem, not a solution.”
― Chuck Hogan, Prince of Thieves

“Newbury Street was the tony promenade listed in every Boston guidebook, beginning downtown at the Public Garden and riding out in orderly alphabetical blocks, Arlington to Berkeley to Clarendon, all the way to Hereford before skipping impatiently to M, the broad Massachusetts Avenue that formed the unofficial western border of the Back Bay. Newbury Street continued beyond that dividing line, but with its spirit broken, forced to run alongside the ugly turnpike more or less as a back alley for Commonwealth Avenue, its humiliation ending at the suicide bridge.”
― Chuck Hogan, Prince of Thieves