Carroll John Daly > Quotes

“His belly was flabby, and it got softer every time I hit it. I hit it often.”
― Carroll John Daly, Race Williams' Double Date and Other Stories

“The tin pan notes of a piano drift faintly into the night. A man curses and a window slams. Far distant an ash can clatters on stone and the almost human screech of a cat pierces the night.”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast

“My life is my own, and the opinions of others don't interest me...”
― Carroll John Daly

“Them that live by the gun should die by the gun, is good sound twentieth century gospel.”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast: Race Williams #17

“If I have any rule pertaining to my profession, that rule is: anything can happen today. Nothing is impossible.”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast: Race Williams #17

“When the time comes for some quick-drawing gunman to jump me over the hurdles I'll ride to the Pearly Gates on my own ticket. It won't be a pass written on the back of another man's thoughts.”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast

“Lay off, kid." I gave her the talk she'd understand. "If I can't help a client I don't blackmail him. That's the difference between a Private Investigator and a Private Detective.”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast

“It all sounds like braggadocio, I suppose. But I can’t help that. It’s just the way I felt. Truth is truth, you know.”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast: Race Williams #17

“The dead so soon grow cold.” Funny that I got that off. It was years since I had read Oscar Wilde or any of his wise cracks.”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast: Race Williams #17

“As Samuel Pepys would chirp—”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast: Race Williams #17

“Nothing to see now but the dull splash of a tail light ahead, and the duller outline of the car near an occasional lamp. Central Park really should go in for murders. It's built for the job.”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast

“Then his voice—and this time I knew the man; and what was more, he knew me. "Race Williams." I could feel rather than see the lips curl, and I knew too that his body stretched forward and that his flash for a second lit upon the crumpled heap of his brother officer below.”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast

“Too many coincidences. I don't believe in coincidences; they're not conducive to long life and liberty.”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast

“an airy-fairy sort of drifting movement”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast: Race Williams #17

“No, I didn't suspect a trap but I was prepared for one just the same. It's not the expected in life that means death, but the unexpected.”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast

“Funny things that come over you then. What did I think of? Death, and all that—and did the faces of dead gunmen bob up before me? No, just one thing shot through my mind. I skipped back to my childhood and seemed to be with Alice, of Alice in Wonderland fame, as she fell down the rabbit hole. Queer that—but true, just the same.”
― Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast: Race Williams #17