Bill

“Her name was Mildred Atkinson and she had led a very stupid life. Grade school, high school—Hollywood High but she was no beauty queen—business college and a job in an insurance office. She was twenty-six years old and she was a good girl, her parents sobbed. She played bridge with girl friends and she once taught a Sunday-school class. She didn’t have any particular gentleman friend, she went out with several. Not often, you could bet. The only exciting thing that had ever happened to her was to be raped and murdered. Even then she’d only been subbing for someone else.”
― Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place

“What sort of God would put us here in this goddamned, stinking slaughterhouse of a world?”
― William Lindsay Gresham, Nightmare Alley

“She had a teddy bear in her arms and murder in her eyes.”
― Jordan Harper, She Rides Shotgun

“I make it a policy never to argue with drug lawyers: they have decent arguments and the best drugs.”
― James Crumley, The Mexican Tree Duck