💬 Quotes

"I’m not a murderer, Tom said to himself. He felt a calmness that was almost religious."

"Everything was going to be all right. He had Dickie’s things, he had Dickie’s money, and he had Dickie’s life."

"He could see no reason why he shouldn’t be happy. He had done what he had set out to do, and he had done it well."

"Everyone wants to know how it happens. How a person becomes a monster. But the monster is not a person. The monster is the story we tell ourselves so we don’t have to look at the person."

"The past is a phantom that lives in the present, haunting the hallways of every room we try to build for ourselves."

"He was a man who collected silences, storing them in his pockets like smooth stones, waiting for the right moment to throw them."

"Memory is not a recording; it is an act of creation. Every time we look back, we change the shape of what we see."

"We are all held together by the invisible threads of people who have left us."

"Death is the easy part. The work—the real, grueling, endless work—is living with the consequences of what we have allowed to happen."

"If you run, they catch you; if you stay, they eat you."

"The law of the City of God is written in blood and gunpowder."

"In the City of God, childhood is a luxury that few can afford."

"Power is like a drug; once you taste it, you’re never the same again."

"The police are just another gang, only they wear uniforms and have a legal permit to kill."

"Everyone wants to be a legend, but legends die young in these streets."

"The music industry is not about music. It’s about people who want to be famous and people who want to fuck them."

"If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. If you want to make him scream with laughter, become an A&R man."

"In the music business, nobody knows anything. That’s the secret. The experts, the gurus, the marketing geniuses—they’re just guessing, and they’re usually wrong."

"You can’t just murder your way to the top. Well, actually, you can. It’s just that most people lack the necessary lack of imagination to realize it."

"The British public are sheep. You don't lead them, you herd them. You give them a song that sounds like the last one, only slightly shitter, and they lap it up."