New York City wind

     On the east side of Sixth Avenue between Tenth Street and the south side of Eighth Street, the winter wind always blows against you. It does not matter which way you go, uptown or down, the wind is in your face. A northwest wind is in your face, a northeast wind takes your breath way, a wind from the south buffets you head-on although you are walking with it. It had, Pam thought resentfully, something to do with the old Jefferson Market Courthouse. Pam looked at the courthouse with animosity.

(from Murder Is Served, by Richard and Frances Lockridge)

Stay put

          "Don't go with anybody who has a gun on you. A person of criminal mind just wants to get you away from help where he can do what he wants without interference. Wherever you are, you are usually safer than where he would take you."  

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Concerning kittens

     "There's no doubt," Pam said, "that three cats are a lot to watch. Of course, if she'd had all five, we'd only have had two - her and one. But when there were only two we had to have three. Because they were so fond of each other."

    "What?" Bill said, and then said, "Never mind."

    "Five kittens we couldn't have kept," Pam said, ignoring the last. So we'd have given away four. But three is just possible."

(from Murder Is Served, by Richard and Frances Lockridge)

Hatred

     "It can last for months, perhaps even for years, and merely grow stronger. Other emotions may fade and grow less important. Hatred is like a hunger and grows stronger . . . . Another thing hatred does is to crowd out everything else. It doesn't leave room for anything else."

(from Murder Is Served, by Richard and Francs Lockridge)

The price of peace

     "Do you ever worry about how it will all turn out?"

    He shrugged. "A man does what he can, whatever the situation. There's only one way to fight: to win, and anybody who uses force without using it to the utmost is playing the fool.

    "I have been fighting all my life, yet I believe in peace. That doesn't do me one bit of good, though, against those men down there, because they have no idea of peace at all. The only thing they understand is violence. They would like for us to go down there and talk peace, but they would kill us all, and that would be an end of it. They would have peace over our dead bodies."

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Run it down

     He did not for a moment believe they would fall back. A good runner can run a horse down . . . all it needs is time, and the Indians had time. He was away for now, but he could not run his horse forever and they would close in - those swift, deadly fighters following after him.

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Tolerance

     "This is a young land, its people love freedom, and by and large they are tolerant; but we must not become tolerant of evil, simply because it exists."

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Putting meaning into life

     In the spinning of planets and the march of suns, in the centuries and the milleniums of time, one man is a small thing, and does not matter very much. It is how a man lives that matters, and how he dies. A man can live proudly, and he can die proudly.

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Strange new ways

     The pioneer came not to raid, but to stay. He settled along the streams, built homes, fenced land. He settled at the water holes, and to the Indian it was a new pattern, one the Indian neither understood, nor liked. Many more white men were killed than Indians, but still they came.

    The Indian way of fighting was to gether together, to raid, ravage, and disappear, returning to his own people with his spoils or his wounded. Indian battles were many, Indian wars were few.

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Won't risk casualties

     "Will the Indians attack us?"

    "No. Not unless there were five or six hundred of them, and this desert will hardly support so many. They'll watch us, and when we camp they'll stampede our stock if they can. Otherwise we won't even see them."

    He paused. "We can always recruit more men, but they can not. There are just so many Indians in each tribe, and when they suffer casualties it is a severe loss. They won't risk it."

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Good companion

     She had lived much of her life with her Uncle John McDonald, a man whose better world was always just across the horizon. There were many like him, but he was more fortunate than most, for he had married Aunt Madge, who was perfectly willing to cross any horizon by his side.

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

The lure of the desert

     He had been thinking of coming back, but he knew that too often other things intervene and such plans come to nothing. If he once left here it was unlikely that he would return. In fact, he dared not. He had seen too many men surrender to the witchery of desert nights, and to the enchantment and mystery of it all. The desert could be a demanding mistress who gave up nothing to a man, but took all, whatever he had to give.

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Why die?

     An Indian out there moved, and Callaghen fired without looking at his piece; he looked only at the Indian. The Mohave stumbled and fell.

    That would put a scare into them. Indians were wise - they saw no advantage in a victory bought with the death of their own warriors. They did not believe in losing men to gain ground, or losing a man for any reason if it could be avoided. They were not afraid to die, but they knew that a dead warrior kills no enemies.

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Really thirsty

     For three days they had thought of that water, longed for it, dreamed wild dreams of it. The most gorgeous woman under heafen would have been spurned by any one of them for one swallow of water, be it brackish, sulphurous, or whatever.

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Inconvenient sons-in-law

     Simon watched Linette's slender figure make its way through isolated empty tables. "You have," he said, facing Bonnet, "two gorgeous girls in the family. The other one," he thrust his chin, "is rolled in one of my shirts upstairs."

    "Ah," Bonnet said, not particularly surprised at the information. "Which one, may I ask, do you intend to keep?"

    "The real one."

    "Ah," Bonnet said again, "an extremely wise choice. What will you do with - " He too thrust up his chin to indicate the higher reaches of the hotel where Simon had his room.

    "Leave her in my hands. I shall sell her for you, sir. With your permission. And turn over the cash this evening."

    "And the other gorgeous girl? Shall I turn her over to you in exchange?"

    "Thank you, sir. I hoped you would."

    Bonnet made a restless stir. "Fate," he said, "to havfe landed up with an honest son-in-law."

(from How To Steal A Million, by Michael Sinclair)

Stealthy contact

    She heard: "007? M speaking." And she giggled, drawing around her the loose silk ties of her bed jacket. "Our telephones may be tapped, so we will conduct this converation entirely in Swahili. Get," Simon's voice said, "on a slow boat to China. A Lithuanian deckhand will molest you at exactly four-thirty-three P.M."    

    Linette said: "You don't think we really are being trapped, do you?"

    "We? You and I? What importance do we have? Two young lovers having breakfast together a mile away from one another. You are having breakfast, aren't you? Or do you always sound as if you're chewing something before you put in your store teeth?"

(from How To Steal A Million, by Michael Sinclair)

Cozy accommodations

"Well?"

"We have our hiding place."

"What is it?"

"Broom closet."

"Big enough for two?"

"A bit of a squeeze," he admitted.

"How long will we - "

"Now, look, lady, at the height of the season, what can you expect? Everything else is all filled."

(from How To Steal A Million, by Michael Sinclair)

Like an old woman

     It was not true, Bonnet thought, that a man could turn gray overnight. Nor that he could age twenty years in a day. Age perhaps was only a question of optimism. He forced a simulation of a smile as he entered the apartment. If it were a question of expression, he might at least try to put on the sort of forced gaiety that was common to aging, wrinkled, defeated women. Though they still looked aged, these transparent masks at least raised their own spirits and gave them an illusion of deceiving others.

(from How To Steal A Million, by Michael Sinclair)

Yousuf Karsh

     In case you never heard of him, Yousuf Karsh was perhaps the greatest portrait photographer of the 20th Century. Over twenty of his photos appeared on the cover of Life magazine. And even if you never heard of Karsh, unless you have lived on a desert island, you have seen his 1941 photograph of Winston Churchill. The Prime Minister's legendary scowl was because Karsh had just stepped forward and removed Churchill's cigar from his mouth. As much as any other, this picture became the symbol of British determination during World War II.

The madness of collectors

     "When he said he'd go through the back door for the Cellini, he probably meant the girl. It would be amusing if he should be stuck with the girl."

    "Stuck with her?"

    "Yes, marry her to inherit the statue. Why not? I know stranger stories. Why, a client of mine once bought an entire chateau just for the fireplace screen in an upstairs bedroom. That's the sort of mentality we're up against in my business."

(from How To Steal A Million, by Michael Sinclair)

Charles Boyer trivia

     First off, Boyer never actually said, "Come with me to the casbah," in the movie Algiers. It was used in the trailer, and in endless parodies of the movie.

    He was married for 44 years to British actress Pat Patterson, until her death. He committed suicide two days after her death.

    His only child, son Michael Charles, committed suicide by playing Russian roulette after separating from his girlfriend.

    Although nominated four times for Best Actor, Boyer never won the Oscar.

Flea market methods

     Leland, with that athletic stride of someone who does twenty push-ups each morning and avoids starchy foods, on reaching the Van Gogh, started rocking back an forth on his heels, appraising the painting with what seemed to Bonnet a mask of indifference. Smart as a fox, Bonnet thought to himself. He will not tip his hand. He glances at it as though politely, with no interest in it whatever. It's the oldest flea-market trick in the world.

(from How To Steal A Million, by Michael Sinclair)

Cowardly burglar

     "What's that?" he asked, turning apprehensively.

    "Only iodine."

    "Will it hurt?"

    Linette met his eyes with a very pointed glance of her own. "Burglars are brave."

    "I told you I'm not a regular burglar," he complained. "I only burgle when I'm hungry."

    "Do you always dress in dinner clothes when you go out to burgle?"

    "Of course," he said as if it were a self-evident rule. "I'm a society burglar. Ouch." He leaped into the air at the touch of the iodine, though Linette had applied it ever so gently. "And," he added, pulling down his sleeve, "I certainly don't expect people to shoot at me."

(from How To Steal A Million, by Michael Sinclair)

A weird-looking guy

     For professional reasons he had cultivated the manners of a dandy, blessed as he was with the bland good looks of a window-dresser's dummy: smooth and waxy complexion, straight silver-gray hair, a  black hairline of a mustache, and perfectly vacant dark eyes that seemed to stare at the world through a blank, hard shield of glass.

(from How To Steal A Million, by Michael Sinclair)