Lawrence Sanders > Quotes

“One never knows, do one?”
― Lawrence Sanders

“Connie, have you been trying to call me?" No Archie. "Well, my phone has not been ringing all day, and I thought it might have been you.”
― Lawrence Sanders, McNally's Risk

“If I felt any better I'd be unconscious.”
― Lawrence Sanders

“I was an only child-- and so I became an only man." Joshua Bigg

The Tenth Commandment”
― Lawrence Sanders

“It’s a cat, but not racist.”
― Lawrence Sanders, Timothy's Game

“Close but no cigar”
― Lawrence Sanders

“What I’m trying to convey is that I love my parents. Of course. But just as important, I enjoy them. How many sons and daughters can say that?”
― Lawrence Sanders, McNally's Risk

“It has all gone so fast, Duke. Like a dream. How is it the days crawl by and yet the years fly?”
― Lawrence Sanders, The Anderson Tapes

“I drove home in a State of Utter: utterly startled, utterly confused, utterly flummoxed.”
― Lawrence Sanders, McNally's Luck

“Eat, drink, smoke, swim in the ocean, play tennis, golf, and poker, watch polo, read trash, listen to pop singers, occasionally attend the theatre, opera, ballet, charity bashes, and private shindigs, buy clothes and trinkets, write to old friends, party with new friends, and sleep. I think that about covers it.”
― Lawrence Sanders, McNally's Risk

“There, there, there.”
― Lawrence Sanders, The Third Deadly Sin

“Let me repeat,” he says stonily, “so there can be no possibility of your misunderstanding the course I intend to pursue. I have spent my entire career with firm and loyal adherence to the platforms and beliefs of the political party I judge best suited to govern this great nation. Now that organization is being threatened by an influx of half-witted rabble, riffraff, and come-to-Jesus nuts. I will not accept that without a fight. I will not allow the party to which I have pledged my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor to become a haven for slum-dwellers, white trash, and the dregs of society who lack the intelligence, pedigree, and noble courage to steer the ship of state safely through the shoals of a complex and frequently hostile world.”
― Lawrence Sanders, The Lawrence Sanders Thriller Collection Volume Two: The Tomorrow File, The Passion of Molly T., and Capital Crimes

“What a peremptory woman she was! I wondered what had happened to her husband. Had he died of frustration because he couldn’t get a word in edgewise? Or had he divorced her for a more docile woman who welcomed small talk and could schmooze for hours about his gastritis and her bunions? My own guess was that Irma’s husband went out to buy a loaf of bread, vamoosed, and was now employed as a tobacco auctioneer.”
― Lawrence Sanders, McNally's Luck

“Wall Street is fueled by greed and oiled by cupidity. It is a state of mind, a culture, a never-never land with all the hopeful romance of the Roseland Ballroom and the grungy despair of a Bowery flophouse. Men have soared on Wall Street—and not all of them through the nearest window because they guessed wrong.”
― Lawrence Sanders, The Timothy Files

“history is change. You can’t stop it; all you can do is try to keep from getting run over by it.”
― Lawrence Sanders, The Sixth Commandment

“He knew what was going on in painting in this country in the Fifties and Sixties. Abstract Expressionism, Pop-Art, Minimal, Op-Art, Less-is-More, Flat, all the avant-garde idiocies. But Maitland paid no attention to it. He went his way. Traditional. Representational. If he painted a tit, it was a tit.”
― Lawrence Sanders, The Second Deadly Sin

“I believe good food is the second-greatest pleasure life has to offer.”
― Lawrence Sanders, The Archy McNally Series Volume Two: McNally's Caper, McNally's Trial, McNally's Puzzle

“My information came with the promise of anonymity for my source.”
― Lawrence Sanders, McNally's Bluff

“ANDERSON: Who copped your cherry? MRS. EVERLEIGH: My brother Ernie. Does that shock you? ANDERSON: Why should it? I’m from Kentucky.”
― Lawrence Sanders, The Anderson Tapes

“the need for gun control laws and a new moral climate.”
― Lawrence Sanders, The First Deadly Sin

“Except that men seem to have a higher opinion of women than women do of themselves.”
― Lawrence Sanders, The Third Deadly Sin

“sometimes people use complete honesty as an excuse for sadism.”
― Lawrence Sanders, The Second Deadly Sin

“Jamie Olson was seated in the kitchen, slurping from a mug of black coffee. We exchanged matutinal greetings,”
― Lawrence Sanders, McNally's Luck

“This was fraternity house stuff, and it displeased him.”
― Lawrence Sanders, The First Deadly Sin

“cloying.”
― Lawrence Sanders, The Lawrence Sanders Thriller Collection Volume One: The Seduction of Peter S., The Case of Lucy Bending, and Tales of the Wolf

“Connie and I had vodka gimlets to start, and we both went for Leroy’s special of the day: a grilled grouper sandwich with spicy french fries, served with a salad of Bibb lettuce, red onions, and a vinaigrette sauce. A winner. Connie attacked her food with enthusiasm and didn’t mention a word about proteins, cholesterol, or fat, for which I was thankful. Nutrition nuts are the world’s most boring dining companions. They make every bite a guilt trip, which forces me to gorge to prove my disdain for calories. I mean, if God had wanted us to nibble, He wouldn’t have created veal cordon bleu.”
― Lawrence Sanders, McNally's Luck

“Don't try to sort the world right. No one can do that. Just accept it.”
― Lawrence Sanders, McNally's Secret

“Sounds good to me,” I said. “Can I bring something to lubricate your tonsils?” “Nah,” he said, “I have a bottle of wine I’ll pop. It’s a naive domestic burgundy without any breeding, but I think you’ll be amused by its presumption.”
― Lawrence Sanders, McNally's Luck

“our sundrenched island of swaying palms, purse dogs and conspicuous consumption.”
― Lawrence Sanders, McNally's Bluff

“tapioca”
― Lawrence Sanders, McNally's Caper