Kendric Neal

“Crossing the line, that's what the Highway Patrol woman said. Neely was on a gurney, his injuries deemed non-life-threatening, she was taking her initial report, just pad and pencil, he was surprised they still used those. She'd made her observations based on the skid marks and the impact. The young guy in the Jeep spun round, crossed the line, straight into the path of what remained of a tree that had stood since the days of Columbus. God's wrath . . . ? Mother Nature's fury . . . ? But had it been meant for one of her native sons or a heretic like Neely? Checking scores while unscrupulous lumber companies took cowardly bites of ancient forbidden forests—turning history into fast food wrappers as poor boys from the tribe died gruesome deaths—a proud people devolving into alcoholism and dissolution while white men chased straights on their sacred burial grounds?”
― Kendric Neal, Drawing Dead

“My style isn't subtle, I know that. I'm sure in fact it violates all kinds of rules about interrogation and all that, I never studied the field. I'm not sure it would have helped anyway—some of the greatest quarterbacks of all time had unconventional styles, I think that's the way the world ought to work. You don't take a guy who's finding success and make him unlearn his style and do it the traditional way, it's encouraging mediocrity. Nobody ever knew when Randall Cunningham was going to get happy feet or when Favre was going to shovel pass a TD out of a sack. You train that stuff out of them and you take away that surprise. So I ask questions, I look for soft, spongy areas and push on them to see if the person cries out. It doesn't endear me to a lot of people, but I've got enough friends and I'm not looking for more.”
― Kendric Neal, To the Metal