Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Laura Lippman

Quote by Laura Lippman

Work

What the Dead Know

In this suspenseful tale, the narrative unfolds through the intertwined lives of a seasoned detective and a determined journalist. As they investigate a series of mysterious deaths, they are forced to confront their own personal histories and the dark corners of their own lives. The novel is a blend of psychological intrigue and police procedural, offering readers a compelling and thought-provoking read. more

Author

Laura Lippman
Laura Lippman

Laura Lippman, born on January 31, 1959, is a renowned American author known for her crime novels. Her works are highly appreciated by readers for their unique narrative style and intricate plot construction. more

You May Also Like

“The moment I entered the bright, buzzing lobby of Men’s House I was overcome by a sense of alienation and hostility … The lobby was the meeting place for various groups still caught up in the illusions that had just been boomeranged out of my head: college boys working to return to school down South; older advocates of racial progress with utopian schemes for building black business empires; preachers ordained by no authority except their own, without church or congregation, without bread or wine, body or blood; the community “leaders” without followers; old men of sixty or more still caught up in post-Civil War dreams of freedom within segregation; the pathetic ones who possessed noting beyond their dreams of being gentlemen, who held small jobs or drew small pensions, and all pretending to be engaged in some vast, though obscure, enterprise, who affected the pseudo-courtly manners of certain southern congressmen and bowed and nodded as they passed like senile old roosters in a barnyard; they younger crowd for whom I now felt a contempt such as only a disillusioned dreamer feels for those still unaware that they dream—the business students from southern colleges, for whom business was a vague, abstract game with rules as obsolete as Noah’s Ark but who yet were drunk on finance.”

“Of course, you have another year at college yet,' Jay Cee went on a little more mildly. 'What do you have in mind after you graduate?' What I always thought I had in mind was getting some big scholarship to graduate school or a grant to study all over Europe, and then I thought I'd be a professor and write books of poems or write books of poems and be an editor of some sort. Usually I had these plans on the tip of my tongue. 'I don't really know,' I heard myself say. I felt a deep shock, hearing myself say that, because the minute I said it, I knew it was true. It sounded true, and I recognized it, the way you recognize some nondescript person that's been hanging around your door for ages and then suddenly comes up and introduces himself as your real father and looks exactly like you, so you know he really is your father, and the person you thought all your life was your father is a sham. 'I really don't know.”

“Of course, you have another year at college yet,' Jay Cee went on a little more mildly. 'What do you have in mind after you graduate?' What I always thought I had in mind was getting some big scholarship to graduate school or a grant to study all over Europe, and then I thought I'd be a professor and write books of poems or write books of poems and be an editor of some sort. Usually I had these plans on the tip of my tongue. 'I don't really know,' I heard myself say. I felt a deep shock, hearing myself say that, because the minute I said it, I knew it was true. It sounded true, and I recognized it, the way you recognize some nondescript person that's been hanging around your door for ages and then suddenly comes up and introduces himself as your real father and looks exactly like you, so you know he really is your father, and the person you thought all your life was your father is a sham. 'I don't really know.”

“The border of a nationality does not exist ‘in-itself’ in the same way that, say, a mountain, a shell or the moon exists. The border of a nationality is a condition that exists, if it can be said to exist at all, in the mind of the one who passively accepts it as existing. It is a ready-cut cloth, a costume, a fabricated flag, which is used to cover our nothingness.”

“By creating a false distinction between "good" and "bad" forms of animal exploitation and violence, the animal industry has convinced the public that there is nothing wrong with animal agriculture, per se, only with the way it is practiced. However, it isn't just the animal industry that has a stake in this. Capitalists and consumers, conservatives and liberals, small-scale farmers and corporate industrial farms alike all wish to re-"naturalize" animal husbandry as a permanent, benignant fixture of the human condition. The new hoax of "humane" meat is thus a convenience for all, a way to neutralize animal advocacy and to fend off the bad conscience of society." - The Humane Hoax”