Jim

“Cops are idealists wrapped in a shell of cynicism. The nature of the work requires self-protection: gallows humor in the face of horrible things; mistrust in the face of lies from suspects and even victims on the one side, and sometimes, they feel, from the bosses on the other.”
― Bill Bratton, The Profession: A Memoir of Policing in America

“Why do we always lose the good ones?” Jon answered, “Because it’s the law of averages.” Most cops are good people.”
― Bill Bratton, The Profession: A Memoir of Policing in America

“Do you not find consciousness alone to be the most exhilarating thing? Here we are, in this incomprehensibly large universe, on this one tiny moon around this one incidental planet, and in all the time this entire scenario has existed, every component has been recycled over and over and over again into infinitely incredible configurations, and sometimes, those configurations are special enough to be able to see the world around them. You and I—we’re just atoms that arranged themselves the right way, and we can understand that about ourselves. Is that not amazing?”
― Becky Chambers, A Psalm for the Wild-Built

“A reputation ruined on the front page was never restored by a retraction on the last. The guillotine gives no refunds, and neither does the press.”
― Josiah Bancroft, The Fall of Babel