Luke Arnold > Quotes

“I was only in my thirties but I was old. You don’t measure age in years, you measure it in lessons learned and repeated mistakes and how hard it is to force a little hope into your heart. Old just means jaded and cynical and tired. And boy, was I tired.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“So, you’re a Man for Hire?” “That’s right.” “Why don’t you just call yourself a detective?” “I was worried that might make me sound intelligent.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“I like books. They’re quiet, dignified and absolute. A man might falter but his words, once written, will hold.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“A good man is made through a lifetime of work. Great men are made by their monsters.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“Then, there’s friendship. I get the idea, of course, but it looks different when other people do it. They seem at ease with each other, while I always feel like a tourist. During my first year in Sunder City, I thought people spent time with me as some sort of charity. I wasn’t witty or insightful or especially interesting, so I thought they only kept me around to be nice.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“It was like walking into someone’s bedroom right after their funeral. It was the first Monday you didn’t have to go to school and knew there were some friends you’d just never see again. It was sitting in a bar in a bad town where no one knew your name and there was no one to talk to and it was too cold and quiet and you were all alone. It was thinking you’d already hit the last step till your leg slips through the empty air and every bit of your body tells you that it’s over.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“I've got nothing left to lose. No friends. No money. Nobody to disappoint. All I have is the perfect cup of coffee. So, for now, I'll drink the coffee.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“You ever suddenly, shockingly, find yourself in the present moment? Drop right into right now? And all it does is highlight the fact that you spend every other moment somewhere else.”
― Luke Arnold, Dead Man in a Ditch

“When I first moved into my office/apartment/icebox, I’d liked the idea of being on the fifth floor. The view was high enough to make me feel like I was looking over the whole city, and the fall out the Angel door would be hard enough to kill me if I dived out of there head first. It’s just one of those little touches that makes a house a home.”
― Luke Arnold, Dead Man in a Ditch

“I tried to bite my tongue but after years of exercise it had learned to fight back.”
― Luke Arnold, Dead Man in a Ditch

“It was over. The world will continue to turn and there will still be jobs and seasons and kissing and chocolate; there just won’t be any music in it any more. We can bite the fruit and understand that it is sweet but not taste it.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“Love? Who the hell knows? Does anyone really understand that one? There are a million poets around the world right now still trying to crack that code.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“We all burn ourselves, Fetch. It’s the best way to learn from our mistakes. It’s only when some part of you freezes that you cut the fucker off.”
― Luke Arnold, Dead Man in a Ditch

“I searched through all my belongings for a good book to escape into. I needed to spend some time in a mind that wasn’t my own.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“we make that choice in a hundred little decisions every day, when we put our own life, and our own comforts, over everyone else. We all live our lives off the blood of other people; they’re usually just far enough away from us that we can convince ourselves that it isn’t the case. We put enough businessmen, enough dollars, enough days and years between our actions and their effect to pretend that they aren’t connected. That we don’t have a choice. But it’s always a choice. We know it deep down, and – unless anybody calls us out – we’ll go on and on letting others suffer, just so we can have one more beer in the sun.”
― Luke Arnold, One Foot in the Fade

“Good gamblers can separate math and emotion. Bad gamblers look for ways to make them align.”
― Luke Arnold, Dead Man in a Ditch

“We all fear the other, and if we ever make friends with our enemy, the first thing we do as allies is identify some new foe.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“Rather than waste their days wrestling with the truth, it was better to get on with life and trust the lies.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“I felt like two hundred pounds of foolishness but I’d done what I’d wanted to: stir up some shit to see what comes sniffing.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“We all fear the other, and if we ever make friends with our enemy, the first thing we do as allies is identify some new foe. There is no real peace, only the brief moments while we turn our heads from one adversary to the next.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“I know what it's like to try and be better. To set yourself a code to live by and to think that maybe you've succeeded. I also know what it's like to have temptation waved in front of your face. To be tested. And to fail.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“I don’t know how they can. This is all new to them isn’t it. No, for them, this broken world will be the good stuff. I can’t imagine it’s not going to get worse by the time they’re as old as we are. Maybe by then we’ll all look back on today and wish we knew how good we had it.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“Instead I ask myself - what do people always need?" He straightened himself up and smiled with perfect teeth. "Breakfast!”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“She said the same amount of nothing she’d said every time I’d gone by.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“Who says we aren’t supposed to be selfish? Who says we’re supposed to be anything?”
― Luke Arnold, Dead Man in a Ditch

“This body, once contained the strongest spirit the world ever know. Now, a tap could shatter it to pieces.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“Or, it could be that I just have one of those faces people dream about pushing into a beehive.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City

“That’s one of alcohol’s cruelest effects: being unable to remember moments that can be our most defining in the eyes of others.”
― Luke Arnold, One Foot in the Fade

“I was always better when it was one on one. In groups, I felt like the others had some connection that I wasn’t really a part of, no matter how much time we spent together.”
― Luke Arnold, One Foot in the Fade

“The blinds were thin and blue. The floor was marble, or maybe it was fake. The whole damned place was trying to pull a ruse. The lampshades were lying and the desk was a cheater and I bet the leather armchair had been trained to pick your pocket.”
― Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City