I feel I’m functioning at some level as a journalist because even though I write fiction, I’m trying to get the world accurate.
In the long run, all wrongs are righted, every minus is equalized with a plus, the columns are totaled and the totals are found correct. But that’s in the long run. We must live in the short run and matters are often unjust there. The compensating for us of the universe makes all the accounts come out even, but they grind down the good as well as the wicked in the process.
The world was full of people who could not get over things. There was no closure and there was no peace. The truth did not set you free. But you could get through things. That’s what Bosch would tell him. You could head toward the light and climb and dig and fight your way out of the hole.
If you go into darkness, the darkness goes into you.
Loneliness had been the trash can fire he huddled around for most of his life.
He had lived alone most of his life. He was used to places that were empty. He knew the real shelter of a home was inside yourself.
The good ones all had that hollow space inside. The empty place where the fire always burns. For something. Call it justice. Call it the need to know. Call it the need to believe that those who are evil will not remain hidden in darkness forever.
The law was not about truth. It was about negotiation, amelioration, manipulation.
He knew there were two kinds of truth in this world. The truth that was the unalterable bedrock of one’s life and mission. And the other, malleable truth of politicians, charlatans, corrupt lawyers, and their clients, bent and molded to serve whatever purpose was at hand.
Reasonable Doubt for a Reasonable Fee. Call the Lincoln Lawyer. Bosch.
He’s dead: Internal bleeding. When they opened him up they found a toothbrush shiv lodged in the anal cavity. It was never determinded whether he’d put it up there for safe keeping himself or somebody else did it for him, but it was a good lesson for the rest of the inmates. They even put up a sign. “Never put sharp objects up your ass.
Swag?” “Scientific wild ass guess.
Politicians could talk about building walls and changing laws to keep people out, but in the end they were just symbols. Neither would stop the tide any more than the rock jetties at the mouth of the port did. Nothing could stop the tide of hope and desire. Bosch.
That’s justice,” she said, nodding at the statue. “She doesn’t hear you. She doesn’t see you. She can’t feel you and won’t speak to you. Justice, Detective Bosch, is just a concrete blonde.
Everybody’s got a cage that keeps out the sharks. Those who open the door and venture out do so at their own risk.
Out of the blue and into the black is what they called going into a tunnel. Each one was a black echo. Nothing but death in there. But, still, they went.
Shouldn’t death be the relief from the tortures of life?
Working homicide for so many years, Bosch could not be surprised anymore by the horrors people inflicted on each other. But the horrors people saved for themselves were a different story.
Nobody in this world is who they say they are. Nobody. Not when they’re in their own room with the door shut and locked. And nobody knows anybody, no matter what they think... The best you can hope for is to know yourself. And sometimes when you do, when you see your true self, you have to turn away.
Everybody has a jury, the voices they carry inside.