Andrew Lee

“He always said the best chance for a hands-on killer to leave a clue was at the last moment of contact, when the deed had been done. Before that, the murderer was likely on high alert, conscious of every move, waiting for the moment to strike. Then, with the victim dead or dying, the killer might let down his guard if he was overconfident or relieved. Who knew what a guy who’d just knifed a kid and twisted the blade felt? Or a woman?”
― James R. Benn, Blue Madonna

“There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro

“What then is the American, this new man? He is either an European, or the descendant of an European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds.”
― J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, Letters from an American Farmer

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt